Exercise in futility
It was novel, indeed, for MQM to take the mohajir case to the White House just as PTI knocked at 10 Downing Street to pressure London to act against Altaf Hussain. The government here owns the Rangers operation in Karachi, of course, which is why selling the genocide charge will be a little difficult in Washington. But this was for optics, which makes it understandable. As for PTI, surely the protest against MQM’s ‘threats against state institutions’ was the politically correct, rather opportune, way of saying they are a thorn in the PTI’s side. This was a similar type of posturing.
There’s no chance really of Obama calling up Nawaz to discuss a separate province in the south. Nor is Cameron going to influence legal proceedings already underway against Altaf because Imran finds him a lingering problem in Karachi. But now that MQM has planned a counter London protest on Aug2, again outside the PM’s house, maybe the outsiders will step in, but to call these trouble makers down rather than push for their causes. There’s little to be expected from continuing this immature display of political friction than a snub, really. Whether or not these parties’ planners took such an outcome into account when working on these strategies remains to be seen.
These defenders of democracy seem to forget that the only credible way of pleading your case in this institution is doing your job well. MQM had a taste of it for a bit when they remodeled parts of Karachi, especially roads and highways, in Musharraf’s time and the people loved it. PTI still has a lot of time to honour some of the tall promises its leaders made going into the election, but they will have to abandon their current policy of confrontation and intimidation immediately and work on projects that do more than point fingers. Many people hoped that the judicial commission episode would end the hostility, at least for this cycle. It is for the leaders to prove that they understand, finally, that their good offices are meant to serve the people at the end of the day. Unless they start putting their energies into constructive enterprises, they are wasting the people’s time, and subsequently their own.