Nine zero’s zero sum game

The headquarters of hate

When the ill-tempered sub-leaders of the MQM appear on the daily talk shows these days, they put on a big show of posing as being as sinless as a sunset and the wronged representatives of a peaceful and democratic party (and community), which is being hounded by everyone under the heavens. There is a good reason for all this newfound play acting, one that doesn’t even fool the fools now. They put on these waspish faces and displays of ‘testy humour’ due to the now terminal foot in mouth disease afflicting their allegedly quasi- providential leader in London. These wronged, aggrieved, mistreated, persecuted, maltreated, victimised, offended and mistreated individuals (to express the whole gamut of their usual complaints), appear on prime time with what have become trademark glowering looks and a phony angry demeanour, intended as a shock tactic or policy to intimidate the other guests (and the audience) and to push them to the defensive. Sometimes shouting incoherently and not allowing the panel, including the anchor, to get a word in sideways, they repeatedly point to their own sainted innocence as contrasted with the deviousness of the critics and their unfounded allegations (be bunyad ilzaam)against the All Saints party of Karachi and its ‘infallible’ leader.

In between the contorted dialectic, the paranoia and the hullabaloo, there is much talk of the Constitution (which by the way only the MQM follows in letter and spirit) and the rightness of their legal position in any given case, interspersed with an over-peppered blend of twisted logic, false analogies and outright lies. Witness the explanation for the recent open invitation to the Indian RAW for help: the leader was merely being ironic or sarcastic! But then Truth sits on the lips of dying (and drunken) men!

But all this loud song and dance performance falls flat for the simple reason that the people already know too much, thanks to a vibrant media and the party leader’s obsession with making terrifying statements and constant threats of murder and mayhem. The MQM leaders are advised not to develop more indignation than they can contain. After all, they have themselves been ministers and advisors in successive governments of all hues over the past decade and more.

No amount of evidence presented by the Rangers or the whistle blowing and chilling confessions of its former target killers, arsonists and extortionists can dim the MQM (the leader in London pronounces the name in a hard and somewhat sinister manner, as if talking of the KGB or the CIA) apologists’ protestations of piety and a perennially injured innocence. Such gentle, truthful, honest, simple, sensitive folk they are… foxes being chased by hounds.

But the game is up if not yet fully ended. The broad masses may be fickle of memory and easily deceived, but there is a limit to their incredulity. The damaging publicity involving the party in London and Karachi and the gains of the ongoing Rangers and police operation have clipped its wings somewhat. The cold-blooded MQM murderers with fancy nicknames, and the arsonists and extortionists cannot freely indulge in their gory games, without remaining untouched by the long arm of the law in London and the para-military forces here. And so the MQM falls back into its worn out groove of the party being driven into a corner, of alleged discrimination against the ‘muhajirs’ and the minus-one formula!

Still, it is a shame and a national tragedy that a party that had promised so much for the country’s middle class, has degenerated into a ‘Cosa Nostra’ organisation with its bloodthirsty and ruthless don ordering killings (with a 007 license) of all and sundry, which are promptly and unquestioningly carried out by his ‘soldiers’.

The MQM has been turned into a renegade party steadily moving away from the country’s political mainstream, and at odds with it. Fed and nourished on a steady diet of hate and brainwashing, it has created divisiveness by exploiting the feeling of alleged deprivation among the Urdu speakers. It widespread penetration by forces inimical to Pakistan (many Indian citizens reportedly among the top leadership in London) is obvious, and the goings on at the International Secretariat, and the steady stream of welcome visitors there, including diplomats and spies from the UK Home Office and MI6 can be readily imagined.

Even cricket has been made into a MQM verses the rest issue, a matter of division within the cricket fraternity and society as a whole. When Sarfraz Ahmed scored a century in the recently held ICC World Cup, the MQM troubleshooter Dr Farooq Sattar (shades of Dr Joseph Goebbels) could not help reminding us that, ‘Sarfraz ne dhokha nahin diya’! Someone within the players’ household also disclosed excitedly that ‘Altaf Bhai had also phoned’. As if one at all knew or cared whether the concerned player was an Urdu speaker. But the MQM turned this into the most important aspect of an otherwise simple matter of a good batting display by a national cricketer.

On the political level the MQM behaviour grows boorish, wild and foolhardy by the day, as if consciously seeking a reckoning within a fixed time-frame. The current cockiness and sneering arrogance of it leader and sub-leaders cannot be explained away only by the recent by-election win in NA 246. At its back, one suspects and fears, might lie some secret pact, some verbal assurance given and eagerly accepted, or some conspiracy whose monstrous visage is being kept in the dark.

But the game is up if not yet fully ended. The broad masses may be fickle of memory and easily deceived, but there is a limit to their incredulity

The ‘great leader’ has always followed a policy of blackmail, threats and extreme allusions such as ripping open the opponents’ abdomen and that of their fathers if ‘freedom’ is denied to them, and a strategy of vulgarly abusing opponents and institutions (women and the army not exempted) and then apologising after the hangover (the latter for the serious hate speech context in the UK). In a post victory telethon after NA 246, Altaf addressed the people of Karachi as ‘the occupied citizens of Karachi’ while the assembled robots and zombies and hidden Indian nationals chanted ‘Azadi’, in the exact same manner favoured by the Muslim demonstrators in Indian occupied Kashmir, with stiff forearms raised in a sign of defiance.

Since mention was earlier made of 007, the role of the UK intelligence agency MI6 in Karachi and the cozy rapport of British diplomats with the MQM must be brought under closer scrutiny by our own spooks (if not already done). The United States has reportedly handed over the matter of the Karachi ‘Great Game’ (‘Great’ after the signing of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor treaty) and its surveillance to the Brits, who are now the ‘great Satan’ of Karachi, and are playing a dirty double game, at which they are quite adept, at already beleaguered Pakistan’s expense. Remember the slavish letter sent by Altaf to the then British PM Tony Blair (or is it a hyphenated B-lair) seditiously offering the MQM services against his former country. The MQM ministers in the federal and provincial cabinets might have been a gold mine of secret information for ‘perfidious Albion.’ So, with friends like these, who needs enemies? And one means both the Brits and the MQM leadership. The nexus between them, as evidenced by the lack of legal action against Altaf in the UK (what if he had been a bearded Islamist?) on grounds genuine enough to constitute an open and shut case, must be taken seriously and the various intelligence networks in Karachi smashed and dismantled. But time is fleeting as this Frankenstein monster, first created and then resurrected by military regimes, now turns on its host and threatens to destroy it. And of course just across the Rann of Kutch lies Gujarat, the home state of ‘soul brother’ Narendra Modi, a place of refuge in case of need, and a proximate route to bring in the ‘Subedar Ram’s’ of RAW, the latter organisation so well-beloved of Altaf Hussain. The headquarters and breeding ground of a needless anti-national clique, with its hatred based on misplaced ethnicity, must be eliminated root and branch and it’s so called ‘solemn sites’ removed from the public eye for all time.

Like any fascist party the party has used terror freely as a political tool, and murder instead of merger (or compromise) to achieve its monopoly in Karachi. Trotsky once said of his great rival Stalin that ‘he seeks to strike not at the ideas of men, but at their skulls’. So many fine, upstanding, capable and learned individuals lost in targeted killings in the (once) city of lights and the mutilated bodies of rivals delivered to the victim’s families in sacks. Frankly, not much of a difference here between the MQM, the TTP and the sectarian butchers’ mindset. Whatever happened to the old values and the sophisticated civilisation of Oudh and the United Provinces, from which region most of these people spring?

The present electoral constituencies also extensively favour the MQM candidates, and delimitation cannot happen without the mandatory national census. But, sad to say, the fault for the amazing (and unfortunate) rise of the MQM in the last decade lies also in our ‘stars’, in this case the political and military ones. Lacking vision or any acquaintance with political ideals and hungry for power, each readily made a ‘devil’s alliance’ with the MQM for short term gains. First, Pervez Musharraf buttered and pampered his ethnic mates and then the equally disastrous Asif Zardari used (or was used) by the Karachi-Hyderabad urban party for completing his own five year reign (without the rule). The NRO released thousands of terrorists and hard core criminals from all parties, with the MQM benefiting the most from this convenient arrangement, which also pardoned the political felons. Even now, some leading parties, instead of ‘holding their noses’ at Altaf’s latest faux pas, have reacted mildly initially, each of them no doubt eyeing a possible future coalition with him, as well as keeping a close eye on the military’s response.

In a fascist party the leader is everything. As one of them remarked in the 1930s, ‘nothing is done in the movement without my knowledge and approval. Nay, more: nothing is done without my desire’. As quoted by Konrad Heiden in his biography of Adolph Hitler, the Wise Men of Zion talked of ‘political pirates’ who ‘exploit the weakness of democracy by preaching democracy but are actually motivated by dictatorship’. Or by other obvious agendas, as in our case. As the Fuehrer himself candidly remarked to his party leaders before the German national elections in 1930, ‘We know that no election can finally decide the fate of the nation. It is not parliamentary majorities that decide the fate of nations— they can destroy nations. But we know that in these elections democracy must be destroyed with the weapons of democracy.’

The onus of what fate befalls the MQM and democracy in Pakistan will rest to a not unimportant degree on the shoulders of Altaf Hussain and his future course of action in Karachi. Will he be overtaken by events and circumstances beyond his control? Will the party remain united or splinter? How will the hard core armed followers, who take orders directly from Altaf in London and listen only to him, react to a split within the party or to a radical change at the helm? Hidden agendas cannot remain hidden forever and the truth will out in the end, even if those who fought for it were murdered. And history is not too forgiving of Fifth Columnists and Vidkun Quislings who betray their own nation. They are all too easily forgotten.