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Ammer Bhutto
is vice-chairman of Sindh National Front. He has degrees
from the University of Buckingham and Cambridge University.
There
is nothing more sublime than the political sovereign (the
people) asserting their will to set right the wrongs. From
time to time, rulers who run amok and systems of governance
that are contorted to fit their requirements need a jolt to
be reminded who the masters really are. Winds of change have
blown away a despot in Tunisia. Unlike in Pakistan, no one
was preaching to the Tunisians that they must suffer in
agonising silence to preserve ‘the system’. The storm has
spread to Egypt, where the people are on the move, and
precursors of the tempest are visible in Yemen, Jordan and
Algeria. In a damage control exercise, the Egyptian cabinet
has been sacked and a new prime minister and vice president
have been appointed, but these measures have failed to
impress the protestors. The people of Tunisia and Egypt have
shown that they are living nations with an awareness of the
future and the will and courage to strive to better their
lot.
Why is there no sign of this happening in Pakistan? United
States Vice President Joe Biden has warned that Pakistan
could be next in line, and understandably so because
conditions here are far worse than in Tunisia and Egypt,
which were not looted by the rulers as openly and on such a
massive scale as Pakistan. There are no reports emanating
from those countries of target killing bloodbaths or the
kind of lawlessness we have to endure |
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Their
institutions had not collapsed the way ours have. They do
not suffer from administrative atrophy and corrosion of the
writ of law to the extent we do. Make no mistake about it;
we have travelled much further down the road to doom than
they had. And yet, while they mobilised to save their
countries from ruin, all we hear from the people here is a
deafening silence.
What do the
people in Tunisia and Egypt have that is lacking in us? Is
it an intrinsic part of our national character to be
doormats and suffer in silence all the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune to which we are continuously subjected?
In the aftermath of the devastating floods last summer, one
imagined that there would be outrage at the way an elected
government abandoned the people to their fate. But instead,
the doling out of a very meagre pittance by means of the
‘watan card’ sent them tamely back to what was left of their
homes, or to the refugee camps where many still live,
without even a whimper. They do not seem to care about the
hell they have been put through or that the dams, canals and
roads that were eroded, or deliberately breached, have yet
to be repaired, as a consequence of which if we have a
similar or even lesser flood this summer, the water will
flow totally unimpeded into not just the already devastated
areas, but also practically everywhere else.
But if
servitude is part of our national character, then how can
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s revolution, that toppled two military
dictators, be explained? Perhaps the difference between then
and now is that that was an age when ideology and the
distinction between right and wrong still mattered. Myopic
greed had not clasped the nation in its clutches back then
as it now has. All the great revolutions of the world have
been born from the yearning for freedom from oppression,
hunger and suffering. A nation that is addicted to living
off handouts can bring about no revolutions. Bhutto lifted
the nation’s spirits by telling them that “yeh quom aik
azeem quom hai. Yeh quom duniya ka loha banay gi!” He
challenged them to step forward and prove their mettle:
“Mehnat karo gay? Laro gay? Maro gay?” After the Indian
invasion of East Pakistan, he defiantly declared in the
United Nations Security Council “We will build a better
Pakistan. We will build a greater Pakistan.” He mesmerised
the people with his message of hope and made them believe
that the future could be so much brighter than the desolate
darkness successive military dictators had led the country
into.
That was a
different time. A different world. At the very least, a
different Pakistan. Firstly, there are no such leaders on
the national stage today, no such message of hope, no ray of
light. The leaders we elect are themselves the cause of our
suffering. The only ideology they offer the nation is record
breaking corruption, incompetence, comprehensive disregard
for public and national interests and a putrid political
expediency they call mufahimat that has devastated Pakistan
but has achieved the desired effect for the rulers of
silencing any meaningful dissent from virtually all quarters
by inviting all and sundry to enjoy a slice of the power
pie. That is why the cry of the suffering, the hungry and
the desolate who commit suicides or sell their children in
the market out of desperation goes unheard and unrepresented
in the corridors of power.
Secondly, the
people have changed dramatically as well. Their priorities,
aims and objectives are different today. Like their new
leaders, ideals, principles and ideology are currencies that
now carry greatly diminished value. Buying people off with
handouts was a strategy initiated by Zia-ul-Haq and has been
continued by successive military and civilian governments as
an opiate for the poor to keep them silent while they
themselves loot the coffers. The people fail to see this
and, though their lives are in tatters, they are satisfied
with scarps that fall off the tables of the high and mighty.
Such a strategy may serve the purposes of the government of
the day but is destroying the binding fabric of nationhood
and a sense of common interest and destiny.
Yes, leaders
have let the people down very badly, but only because the
people have allowed them to do so repeatedly and get away
with it without any trace of accountability. Ultimately, the
political sovereign can not escape responsibility for the
mess they find themselves sinking in. It is true that there
is no one of national following to lead a popular uprising,
but that has never been an insurmountable impediment in the
history of revolutions. It is people who bring about
revolutions, not leaders. When a nation mobilises, new,
clean and honest leaders come up from among their ranks. Who
had heard of Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro or Emilliano Zapata
before the Chinese, Cuban and Mexican revolutions? Who led
the popular uprising in Tunisia? It was the people who
seized the initiative. In fact, not having strong leadership
was perhaps one of the reasons for the success of the
Tunisian Jasmine Revolution, as it is now being called,
because some leaders can be pressured and manoeuvred,
whereas the formidable flow of an entire nation can be
neither contained nor diverted.
Even if Joe
Biden’s warning was to be heeded and an effort made to set
right the wrongs, the million dollar question is who will
undertake such a gargantuan task? Everyone is naked in this
hamam (bath). Slumbering nations can be awakened by shock
treatment. The bungling, incompetent incumbent dispensation
in Pakistan has delivered enough shock treatment to awaken a
continent or two. If we have a smidgen of spine left in us,
now is the time to show it. How long can the anaesthetic of
handouts and political bribery withstand the mounting pain
and suffering? Long gone are the days of deliverers
descending from the heavens to lead nations out of slavery
to the Promised Land. When leadership and ‘the system’ fail,
it falls upon the political sovereign to seize the day, not
only because it is their democratic right, but because it is
their moral duty. |
