The trappings of power and the quest for change
Peace is nowhere on the horizon. Given the apparently irreconcilable divisions along religious, ethnic and sectarian lines, it appears the country is destined to bleed itself to death.
The unending spate of terrorist attacks in KPK, the ethnic cleansing in Balochistan, the sectarian killings in Sindh in an environment of fear at the hands of bandits, extortionists and murderers and the havens of militants in the heart of Punjab understandably enjoying the protection and patronage of the government of the province are all indications that we are determined to bring destruction upon ourselves. But, utterly unmindful of the tragedies that strike the country on a daily basis, the criminal political mafias across the divide are busy buying their future stakes in the government that will take charge after the national elections.
Whether Nero played the fiddle or not while Rome burnt, the dictum truly applies to people who occupy the seats of power in Pakistan. The country has been bleeding bit-by-bit, but it has made scant impact on the rulers’ inexhaustible infatuation with power. Pakistan appears to be in the grip of an endless mayhem, but its rulers remain engrossed in discovering ever-new methods to skin the country of its resources. Even more frighteningly, they remain busy in manipulating the institutions of the state to run away with the next elections. Be it the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) or NADRA, all these institutions are being used as pawns by the manipulative rulers in the greater game of strengthening and prolonging their vice-like grip on the seat of power. In this evil pursuit, all the political mafias are together. They are together to block the advent of change – a change that may bring relief to the poor and the downtrodden, the sick and the needy, the illiterate and the deprived, the underprivileged and the disenfranchised, the grief-stricken and the fear-afflicted, the exploited and the abused. They are together in keeping the people captive within the parameters of their evil machinations. Their heartlessness is reflected in the devious schemes they formulate and the demeaning methods that they intend to employ in buying the entire election protocol.
Pakistan seems heading for the precipice. This is so because the traditional and the corrupt political mafias are not willing to loosen their grip on the citadels of power. In fact, they are determined to dig their tentacles deeper so as to stake a permanent claim on the right to rule this country. They are doing so through none of the internationally-established and recognised democratic principles. On the contrary, they are manipulating the executive of the state and the power-base that they have accumulated on account of being part of the incumbent governments to perpetuate their hold on institutions that would be entrusted with the task of inducting them back into the corridors of power. This seems to be a vitiating cycle that is impossible to break but for the showing of an unprecedented resolve on the part of the ultimate arbiters of national destiny – the people of Pakistan. Are they willing and equipped with the wherewithal to do so? Are they involved enough and concerned enough to do so?
One will also have to concede that the move for an orderly change has been substantially diluted. This is owing to a visible loss of faith in the system that has been systematically perpetuated in the country. This system is solely interest-driven – the individual as well as collective interest-paradigm of the traditional political mafias who have maintained their stranglehold on the bases of power. This interest-paradigm works around the principal objective of keeping people away from becoming stakeholders in the task of ruling the country. This is being fraudulently accomplished by denying them their inherent right to education, economic empowerment, social enfranchisement and religious freedom. They have become convenient tools in the hands of the manipulators to further advance their stakes and hold on to the centres of power. On the face of it, it reflects the traditional tug-of-war between the privileged and the unprivileged of a society that is consistently retrogressing and degenerating. There is no respite and there is not likely to be any in the foreseeable future. The battle-lines have been clearly drawn and the forces are threateningly arrayed.
On the one hand are the forces representing power and privilege and, on the other hand, are the forces of the weaklings and the stricken. In a straight-off, the latter are likely to be vanquished. Lacking in resources and trappings of power, they just do not have the wherewithal to win this battle. This is the basic contradiction that plagues the argument for change: how can you wage a war and win it playing in conditions that do not provide you a level-playing field? How can the forces of change succeed working within the parameters that have been perfected over decades to suit the traditional stakeholders? How can they bring change without breaking free of the constraints and confinements of the corrupt mafias?
The only factor that can make change happen is through invoking the involvement of more people in the process of elections. They are the people who have never gone to the polling booths in the past, but they are concerned about the harrowing plunge that the country has taken in the last five years under the most inept and corrupt government in the history of Pakistan. This has to be a combined and concerted effort by all those who are spearheading the battle for change. It should aim at motivating and guiding the real stakeholders to the polling stations to use their right to re-shape the destiny of a stricken land.
If that happens, the challenge thereafter will be even a bigger one: the challenge of changing the direction of this country and taking it away from the dungeons of darkness that it seems headed for. That would require the ultimate in commitment and resolve because the shadows that envelop the country today have a pernicious element about them. Casting them off will not be an easy task, but the country must regain its liberal and progressive moorings.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]
