Moving past the toxicity

A battle began in the 1990s in Pakistan between a military dictator and a politician who was once mentored by the very establishment that overthrew him and who arguably became the most popular politician Pakistan’s largest province had produced. This battle gave birth to an animosity that lasts to this day.

Over almost two decades, this battle has seen both sides win as well as lose with various periods in which each has been able to gain an upper hand. In 2108 we saw one side succeed in its final stand when Imran Khan rose to the office of prime minister, replacing the government of the now disqualified for life Nawaz Sharif.

Imran Khan was a charismatic cricketing legend who had also made a name for himself as a philanthropist, having successfully built Pakistan’s largest comprehensive care cancer hospital. With minimal baggage, he was seemingly the ideal choice for being the democratic face of a politically engineered regime. Imran Khan however squandered the opportunity fate provided him and in three and a half years built a baggage to match if not supersede that of his predecessors. He leaves behind a tenure filled with colossal failures, nonstop bad decisions, and the now infamous U-turns. More importantly, his actions in the last three plus years revealed him to be a far greater hypocrite than any of the politicians he had constantly criticized. There is probably a video clip for almost everything he preached and failed to actually practise.

It can also be argued that the Imran Khan of today is hardly the man he was when he began his journey. To his misfortune Imran Khan successfully alienated, one by one, all those who had helped him, ending with a unique assemblage of the incompetent and the corrupt. They amplified his already inherent arrogance; fueled his delusion of grandeur; failed to provide a reality check every successful leader needs and instead of contributing to his success, ensured his failure. To draw an analogy from the corporate world, when one acquires a new business or company the first task is to gain an understanding of the nature and operations of the business. Even though you intend to hire professionals to manage the various aspects of the business, you need this basic knowledge to make somewhat informed decisions, or your managers might end up taking you for a ride. At the core of Khan’s failure is a man simply not competent or having the ability to run a country. Combine this with an equally incompetent team and you have a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

Perhaps Khan’s greatest flaw is his misguided sense of entitlement. He mistook unprecedented support for unconditional support. Unable to bear the burden of Khan’s dismal performance and widespread public dissatisfaction, those powerful entities that had once supported him undertook a much-needed course correction. At the same time, much of the old guard that bore the legacy of animosity with the Sharifs had faded into retirement. Without this support, Khan’s government fell like a house of cards.

Now out of office, Khan is playing a final gambit straight out of Machiavelli’s playbook. He gained power by making grandiose promises to his benefactors as well as the people of Pakistan that the country and people’s lives would miraculously change. Having failed at both and creating widespread misery instead, an unseen enemy has been fabricated for people to blame, hoping that people would forget who caused the misery in the first place. This strategy is particularly effective in a country with a history of intrigues and a populace with a high receptivity to conspiracy theories. To put it simply, if you don’t want people to blame you, exploit existing prejudices and give them someone or something else to blame and hate for their misfortunes.

Khan left office with a devastated economy, a Pakistan increasingly isolated in the world and infected with a culture of hate, division, and intolerance. This perhaps is his greatest disservice to the country. He weaponized the cynicism and intolerance already prevalent in our society for political advantage, creating an environment where it has become increasingly hard to do the right thing. Even those who do the right thing for the right reasons face the risk of incurring an often unbearable cost of a no-holds-barred personal defamation campaign, endless questioning of their motives and an onslaught of a counter-narrative. The most dangerous thing in any society is the fostering of the thought and belief that every act is motivated with a conspirative motive, every accusation is a declaration of guilt, and every individual has the right to be a judge, jury, and executioner.

Khan’s foreign conspiracy tactic seems to be gaining traction. In the aftermath of a political entity facing significant setback, a strong resurgence in its core following despite its dismal performance is not uncommon. It is a basic human trait to shift blame to an object of prejudice rather than accept the reality of the object of one’s veneration. This is compounded by his enablers in the media who are intent on reinventing him as a demagogue.

At the same time, his opponents and critics are rejoicing at the opportunity to unearth his various alleged corrupt acts which they believe will shatter his self-righteous facade once and for all. The first of these is the ‘Toshakhana Scandal’, where Khan purchased (at highly subsidized prices) and subsequently sold the various gifts he received as prime minister from various heads of state and dignitaries. Setting aside the criminality aspect of the matter, this is demeaning to our national image as well as an incredibly petty act. Ironically, Khan once delivered a scathing criticism of his predecessors who he claimed had done the same.

As more misdeeds are unearthed and assuming Khan has no direct involvement in them, his supporters will present the same old argument that Khan himself is not corrupt. Even if one accepts this, does a person who witnesses a heinous crime and looks the other way not bear the same guilt as the perpetrator, especially if such an individual has absolute power to stop the commission of such an act? While there has been an unprecedented revival of support in Khan’s core following, there is also an equal resurgence of hate in his opponents and critics. However, the pivotal element here is the ‘middle’ which comprises the populace between the for and the against. Ultimately, it’s the tilt of the ‘middle’ that determines majority opinion and hence success or failure.

One lesson you learn from history is that great leaders fight the fiercest of battles with dignity and grace, accomplish more with collaboration rather than confrontation and the gifted yet humble always outplays the arrogant yet incompetent. The outcome of this ongoing political battle is yet to be seen. If we are fortunate, our leaders will gain a realization of their flaws and find a way for us to move past this endless cycle of blame and a stronger united Pakistan will rise from this toxic and acrimonious political conflict now spilling onto our societal fabric.

Ultimately a national dialogue with uninhibited introspection will have to take place. Perhaps the ‘ultimate surprise’ Imran Khan will give us is to acknowledge and redeem his mistakes and participate in this dialogue. If we can sit down with our mortal enemies, we can certainly sit down with each other.

The writer is a Pakistani entrepreneur based in the United States and the United Kingdom. He tweets @viewpointsar and can be reached at: sar@icloud.com