Over the past several weeks, I have watched with growing concern as the country I live in has gone to the dogs. It would not have been so bad if it weren’t for habitual offenders, but this sort of “humara mulk ek nazuk morr pe khara hai” nonsense has been going on too long. Shahzad Roy’s choice of words notwithstanding, our country was founded on a certain set of principles, principles which held for those living in the country the promise of a better life.
We were supposed to be free to go to our mosques, churches, synagogues and temples, all because religious freedom was one of the cornerstones of our founding father’s philosophy. Here was a land of opportunity, a piece of earth that offered marginalised people from all over the chance to resettle themselves, start from scratch (albeit with nothing in their pockets) and reinvent themselves in whatever image they saw fit. This, then, was the real land of opportunity.
Then the bad men came and deprived us of our sovereignty. There were supra-national defence pacts that we were subjected to, international organisations and brotherhoods that we had to join. Since these clubs were exclusive and we were an up and coming state with no history, no present and, if things remained as they were, no future either. Taking the safe route, we flew to Washington instead of Moscow, signed up to the Baghdad rather than Warsaw Pact; and then attempted to extract from SEATO and CENTO the advantages enjoyed by other members, i.e. the right to call upon the other in our time of need.
The time of need came and went, as did our collective national spine and self-esteem. They came at us from all directions, but if it were not for saner heads, even the sacrifices of our most valiant soldiers would’ve been in vain. But it was combination of cunning diplomacy, level-headed leadership and sheer good luck that we were able to come out of 1965 with our dignity and country intact. And you’d think such an incident would force our leaders and our people to think twice about what they were doing before they did it. And they did.
For about two seconds. Then the heavy boot walas came and ‘set things right’ again. This time, they really blew it, and thanks to their iron-hand approach to any problem they were faced with, we ended up losing half the country. But the boots weren’t bothered and the civilian leadership didn’t care. “Good riddance to the fishy buggers, at least they didn’t join India,” was the only consolation afforded to us by these arrogant few in mud-coloured fatigues. Any sane individual would consider the idea monstrous, but luckily for us, the guardians of our (sic!) frontiers are anything but of sound mind. And if it hadn’t been for a certain crate of mangoes, we would still live in the middle ages. I guess gluttony is a cardinal sin after all!
Henceforth, the civilian leadership’s cameo appearances made little difference to the historical trajectory of our bad state and continuing our downward spiral, we sunk deeper and deeper into debt, poverty, depravity and deceit. Corruption doesn’t even begin to describe it and embezzlement is, in fact, a children’s substitute for the really dirty words. Bled dry our country was, to borrow from the Yoda book of grammar. Change we must to save our future we can. But guess what?
Enlightened moderation, the Higher Education Commission, a media explosion and a musical tradition were all relics of a better time. A time when I was still growing up and had no semblance of abstract concepts such as democracy, proportional representation, accountability and development expenditure. I was a child of the Abu Musharraf bin Hamza generation and, as much as I hate to say it, we were kinda better off then. Not on an ideological level, because clearly democracy is the best revenge. Not on a moral level, because fahashi was the name of Herr Musharraf’s game. Not even on an economic level, because all our money (or lack thereof) was in the hands of a balloon-maker extraordinaire. Not even on a human level, because we sold more of our own souls to The Great Shaitan during this period than at any other point in our history.
So why was it easier for me to get into university and then land a job without a Grade 21 sifarish at the time? Why was Hina Rabbani Khar even elected to parliament? How did India and Pakistan come so close to a rapprochement under this military “madman”? Why is it that the very khaki evil that had plagued us for most of our beleaguered existence was actually better than the alternative ideal?
Simple. It was because Musharraf’s conscience hadn’t committed hara-kiri.
