Where loot, plunder, pillage and robbery become a preferred norm
“The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands.”
– Havelock Ellis
“The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but, above all, from the predatory politician.”
–James J. Hill
The dictionary defines predatory as a behaviour pertaining to, or characterised by, plunder, pillage, robbery or exploitation. It could be one or all of these together. The powerful eliminating the weak, the rich subjugating the poor, an evil appetite devouring assets and morals alike, the advantaged marginalising the disadvantaged, all these acts are symptoms of the predatory instinct. From times immemorial, people have suffered at the hands of this evil characteristic. It is a reprehensible predilection whereby people use their inherent or illicitly acquired position of advantage to vanquish their adversaries, be it in the realm of political rivalry, business competition, a status conflict or just a pleasure or ego trip.
The behaviour does not afflict individuals alone. Even states become victims of this because of leaders who manoeuvre to positions of ascendant power, or through acts committed by them to advance certain megalomaniac disposition that is obdurately bent on eliminating any pretence of competition. In such an instance, the behaviour of the state could even degenerate to outright massacre and elimination of adversaries along religious, sectarian, colour and creed lines. History is replete with such instances which continue to happen even today. These are either overlooked by the so-called civilised world, or little effort goes into addressing its evil consequences whereby thousands become victims at the hands of vigilante marauders driven to imposing their sinister writ.
Most important of all, it is the people ensconced on seats of power who are responsible if the state assumes the predatory instinct. Primarily this would happen because therein is hidden the way to their continued and unchallenged power. Mostly this is reflected in the mad pursuit of hoisting family fiefdoms and a regressive narrative that would be acceptable to the ‘largest number of people’, thus effectively catering to a perceived ‘democratic’ need. In the process, the state embraces a culture that is patently out of sync with the requirements of keeping it on course to its egalitarian and progressive needs.
Pakistan has been a victim of the predator instinct so much so that it has lost its very identity to the machinations of its rulers who have not hesitated from distorting the enshrining principles that stood supreme at the time of its emergence as an independent and sovereign state. The Objectives Resolution was introduced early on that curbed its ability to cope with challenges and chalk out a path that would be conducive to taking initiatives for the welfare of the state and its people. On the contrary, we became embroiled in defending, even promoting religiosity-based edicts that were contrary to the state’s ethos and did incalculable damage even to its ability to survive. That’s why we remain tottering on the brink, often dubbed as a failed state, but mostly as a failing one!
Pakistan has been a victim of the predator instinct so much so that it has lost its very identity to the machinations of its rulers who have not hesitated from distorting the enshrining principles that stood supreme at the time of its emergence as an independent and sovereign state. The Objectives Resolution was introduced early on that curbed its ability to cope with challenges and chalk out a path that would be conducive to taking initiatives for the welfare of the state and its people. On the contrary, we became embroiled in defending, even promoting religiosity-based edicts that were contrary to the state’s ethos and did incalculable damage even to its ability to survive.
The tools that the rulers, of the democratic and dictatorial hues both, have used in plunging the state into its present pitiable fall defy description. From scavenging its assets and riches to pushing it into counterproductive conflicts and introducing draconian laws contrary to the concepts of human dignity and respect, the state has been principally used as a convenient means to advancing the cause of perfidious individuals who hold their ‘self’ outside the domain of law. While the state continues to reel under the unbearable weight of these vile edicts, they have not even shied away from letting it fall into the hands of elements whose animosity has never been hidden and who have persistently worked against its inherent interests and security paradigm. These are the elements which have subjected the state to a barbaric assault stretching to over a decade now costing it incalculably in terms of human and material losses. There is not a home across the expanse of the country that has not been affected either directly or indirectly as a result of this unremitting barrage of violence. The leadership conglomerate embraces these criminal elements in an ongoing negotiations charade that can only damage the state further and may even expedite its premeditated liquidation. The criminal weight of a nauseating past and a humiliating lack of will for extricating the country out of this mess combine to make the future unmanageably bleak.
The problem is that it is the people who have a painfully short memory. They are easily swayed by emotions and, in the process, lose sight of the reality and are detached from the realm of a rational discourse. When the government, pressed by its espousal of the militant mindset, constituted a committee to initiate the process of negotiations with the defunct, criminal militant factions, they forgot that, in actual effect, it were a group of closet militants negotiating with real-time militants. No matter what was to be the outcome of such an engagement, the people or the state did not stand a chance to benefit. A few weeks later, and after seeing the throats of its soldiers slit in custody, the criminal leadership is looking for another excuse to resume the dialogue process. Should one say, the die is already cast?
Something appears to be primordially flawed. Be it the sequential leadership taking over in the country, or the behaviour of the people, it all suffers from a palpable detachment with reality. There is a fictional, make-believe world that they remain wedded to and prefer to live in. It is a world which is of their sole making and which has no relevance with the real world outside. The problem is that, in spite of innumerable setbacks, they don’t quite appear to wake up. They don’t want to. It is the proverbial case of burying your head in sand and wishing the worst to pass. The only problem is that it does not happen that way. On the contrary, it only gets worse with time as it has for Pakistan and its people.
Where to from here? Is there a way forward that would take us away from the mess that we have created? I wish there were such an avenue available. That would have been easy: just repent the past mistakes and get on course to a brand new future. But it cannot happen that way. The mess is too gruesome to be wished away. It is too dangerous to be toyed with. It stinks making one run for life. To make it worse, there is no realisation of the mess around and not an iota of will to deal with it. So, understandably, it is bound to get worse.
Yes, there is a way out. It is not a simple way. It requires of us to change our fundamental behaviour and the manner we look upon the critical issues that have plagued our entire existence as a so-called sovereign state. It requires of us to understand that we are in a mess, that we need to plan a way out and gather the will and resolve to do so with urgency. It requires a change of perception. It requires a change of understanding. It requires a change of behaviour. It requires a change of strategy. Are we up to it? Do we have it in us to make this key transition from where we are languishing today to where we should be in the foreseeable future? On the face of it, the answer would be in an assertive no.
Yes, there is a way out. It is not a simple way. It requires of us to change our fundamental behaviour and the manner we look upon the critical issues that have plagued our entire existence as a so-called sovereign state. It requires of us to understand that we are in a mess, that we need to plan a way out and gather the will and resolve to do so with urgency. It requires a change of perception. It requires a change of understanding. It requires a change of behaviour. It requires a change of strategy. Are we up to it? Do we have it in us to make this key transition from where we are languishing today to where we should be in the foreseeable future?
But if we continue on the course that we have been traversing for so long now, the end is well nigh there: destruction, annihilation, elimination. Living together with militancy and espousing their mindset takes the little rationale away from our tenuous existence. It shakes the foundations on which stands the edifice of the state. It dilutes the understanding and commitment of the people to survive as an independent nation. It relegates them to the status of the militants who are garbed in the apparel of religion and who want to impose a draconian writ that exists only in their parlance, their interpretation of a polity that is avowedly the antithesis of how it actually is. The whole nation lives in an animated suspension: somewhere in the middle of the reality and how things are made up in this country.
I am reminded of T. S. Eliot who puts this state across so powerfully in “The Hollow Men”:
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
The broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on the beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men
Do I need to say more? Yes I think I do.
It is death’s kingdom we are living in. It was not so in the beginning, nor was it meant to be. It has become what we have made of it: the leaders and the people together. It is not going to change. It cannot unless we will it to change. It must begin by changing the leadership that is complicit with crime, militancy and a narrative that would sound the death knell for the state and its people. The need is for us to move away from this sick narrative, and quickly. Otherwise, we sink with the mess that we have created around us. Having tasted blood, the predator leadership would move to first vanquish the people before moving on to demolishing the state edifice.
