A genius for duplicity

Our elite revels in a state of denial, hypocrisy and decadence

If we consider the condition of our society at this time, it can be classified in three words: denial, hypocrisy and decadence. Of course in this instance denial does not mean something as ridiculous as self-denial. Sacrifice is an ethical or a moral failing best left for the stout hearts and shoulders of others! Like automatons, we say things every day that we know in our hearts to be blatantly and unashamedly untrue. Our deliberate daily actions (or lack of them) and conscious little misdeeds of hypocrisy leave much to be desired in the context of humanity, decency, generosity and social fellowship. Decadence, lies and falsehood are now written in our DNA (no pun or any allusion intended). The supposition that mankind is the ‘roof and crown’ of all created things completely breaks down, even appearing comical, when applied to ourselves and to the current condition of our society. Yet we stubbornly cling to our self-proclaimed purity, our innocence and our assumed naiveté. We are all as sinless as a sunset. To forget our guilt and to suppress the little pinpricks of conscience, we either suffer a convenient amnesia or talk incessantly through our hats to no apparent purpose. Or else call up an All Parties Conference or a joint session of Parliament! But even in that masquerade we do not mean what we say and we do not say what we mean. Or, we say one thing and mean quite another.

But then, is not this situation and this outlook common to nearly every society in every age? All the advances of civilisation have not quite buried mankind’s biologically — bred instincts of violence, cunning, cruelty and self-survival. Our civilisation seems to be only a thin veneer and when the conditions are right, the snout of the beast reappears, as indeed it did during much of the gory twentieth century. This dichotomy in man’s nature, as also the contrast in his public and private persona fascinated and horrified Robert Louis Stevenson, who set it out in his classic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. And who can say anything better than the Bard on any human emotion or matter:

Mark you this, Bassanio

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul, producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

This seems a pretty fair description of our society, but above all, of the ruthless elite, self-serving and rapacious, the pet hate of the vast majority of the citizens.

All the major power stakeholders in our system are willing ‘victims’ of this trio of dubious qualities, the state of denial, hypocrisy and decadence. Political, mercantile and religious entities have all acquired a distinct distaste for confronting the stark facts to protect their petty (but materially astronomical) vested interests. In the state of denial, as in the nature of war, the first casualty is always the truth.

Take the case of our political parties, the glue that is supposed to keep the whole edifice of the federation together. The sorriest looking among the lot is the PPP. Despite the mountain of available evidence, it aggressively denies any allegation of corrupt practices on the part of its top leadership. It is also loath to accept the charges of its universal incompetence, criminal disregard of merit and its dismal failure to redress the grievances of the majority. In a conditioned reflex-action response, its takes refuge in the self-pitying ‘party of martyrs’ syndrome or else threatens to play the Sindh card or even violence if its misdeeds are called into account.

Political, mercantile and religious entities have all acquired a distinct distaste for confronting the stark facts to protect their petty (but materially astronomical) vested interests

The MQM will not accept that its three-decade long reign of terror in Karachi is over, that if it is not the ‘beginning of the end, it is at least the end of the beginning’ that things are starting to change. It delights in posing as a blameless and harmless victim, all angelic and pure-white innocence, always being driven into a corner by powerful state institutions. But not a word when it comes to the little matter of their own gangs of confessed assassins, target killers, extortionists, arsonists and torturers, so skilled in the use of the drilling machine as well as the machine pistol (9mm) and in quartering corpses. They will accuse the whole world and high heavens itself rather than accept their own transgressions.

Then there is the PTI that still believes in its ideal of ‘change’ with so many renegades and defectors of various parties crowding its ranks. It regularly bends with the wind for any electoral gain, but still talks and acts as if it were ‘as constant as the Northern Star, of whose true-fixed and resting quality, there is no fellow in the firmament’. So, there is slim chance of a PTI-led national revival on the lines of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s I930s New Deal, which brought about an economic and social revolution by peaceful means in the recession-stricken country.

The JUI-F, the ANP and the ‘Q’ League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, all have rosy visions of their own future and national importance, but are in denial of the fact that they are simply spoilers or parties of national nuisance, to be called into action in an emergency and then cast away into the nothingness from which they emerged.

That eternal loose cannon, Sheikh Rasheed, of his own Awami Muslim League, is persistently waiting for any corrupt government of ‘looters and dacoits’, at any given moment, to collapse and give way to a ‘better’ dispensation in which of course ‘his voice will be as strong as any man’s, in the disposing of new dignities’. Perhaps he harbours nostalgic memories of his old post of information minister, or if the change is of the ‘radical’ kind, sweet dreams of being selected or nominated as prime minister. But of course all his political tirades and aerobatics are for the sake of democracy, eradicating corruption and for the welfare of the common man.

In reality, all our ‘democratic’ political parties have two things in common, an undisputed strongman and a slavish following. As someone remarked of the British prime minister of the 1930s, Neville Chamberlain: ‘if Chamberlain says that black is white, the Tories applaud his imagination. If the next week he says that black is black after all, they applaud his realism. Never have I seen such servility’. The leader may owe his position either to a line of martyrs and a last will and testament framed piece of paper, or to long years in and out of power combined with great (ill-gotten) wealth, the result of a judicious mix of politics and business, or in the extreme Karachi instance, to a brutal blend of terror and barbarity, or in a number of cases, to a religion-based dogma. The rest of the party leaders do not matter, they are merely light–reflecting satellites. The obedience of the Yes-Men when toeing the autocratic leader’s line is not any less than that followed in military circles. It works in only one way: in obedience upwards, in command downwards.

The prolific British humourist writer PG Wodehouse, who stayed in Hollywood for many years, observed the studios’ ‘hierarchy of toadyism’ in his short story, ‘The Nodder’. Wodehouse explained the term as follows: ‘A Nodder is something like a ‘Yes-Man’, only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man’s duty is to attend conferences and say ‘Yes’. A Nodder’s, as the name implies, is to nod. The chief executive throws out some statement of opinion and looks about him expectantly. This is the cue for the Senior Yes -Man to say ‘Yes’. He is followed in order of precedence, by the Second Yes-Man—or Vice-Yesser—as he sometimes is called—and the junior Yes-Man. Only when all the Yes-Men have yessed, do the Nodders begin to function. They nod’. There was even a group known as Assistant Nodders, but the writer felt the reader should not bother about them. It is exactly on these Yes-Man and Nodder lines that the organisations of all our political parties function. But it must be clearly mentioned here that Sheikh Rasheed only nods in one direction: towards a certain section of Rawalpindi.

The PML-N is obsessed with the idea that the construction of signal-free corridors, elevated expressways and Metros and Orange trains are the panacea for all the country’s ills, including round the year load shedding, gas shortages in winter, water scarcity in summer, high inflation (despite all the statistical falsification) not to mention the millions living below the poverty line. The party is now even employing supernatural help to hasten the completion of its energy projects. That the Nandipur power plant folded within a day of its inauguration was no doubt due to a wrong spell being cast on this occasion. So, not to worry, situation hopeless but not serious! The Punjab chief minister’s statement, made live in all seriousness before television cameras, that men alone could not have completed the Nandipur Dam in record time, and that Djinns certainly assisted in this enterprise, no doubt qualifies him for quizzical looks if not the loony bin. NAB and FIA, watch out for suspicious-looking jinnat whom you would surely need to assist you in your enquiries when the long-awaited investigation into the stalled nearly sixty billion rupees project begins.

Aping the sterling example set by the elite, the ordinary folk have also taken to all sorts of mendacity for ill-gotten gain, including adulteration of foodstuffs, selling dead meat (only of animals, so far!)

All the top leaders maintain a public pose and posture suitable to their purpose and their party. Asif Ali Zardari was all sweet talk and a perpetual wide grin in his reconciliation phase, until he recently cracked under the strain of putting up this charade far too long. The MQM tin-pot fuehrer employed a vast range of repertoire — from crying to singing — it was difficult to tell which was which, in his frequent rants. Like all the political leaders, the prime minister too has a carefully practiced pose that he puts on for the benefit of the viewers (if any) in his television appearances. This consist of a gentle, patronising, statesman-like manner, uttering his words softly and with much earnestness, as if patiently explaining a complex issue to an idiot child, much scratching of the back of the head (a recent gimmick), except that the pose comes out as patently fake to the cynical audience who do not believe a word he says. Oscar Wilde remarked that ‘being natural is also a pose and the most irritating pose of all’. The great dramatist said this in jest (as always), but our political leaders could at least make an effort to be their normal, natural selves once in a while and not try to dupe their listeners with their artificial postures and histrionics. They live like billionaires (on taxpayers account, of course), but some of them are actually billionaires (in US$), stay in the most expensive hotels while on official tours (which is often) and throw lavish feasts for thousands. There are culinary orgies of feasting, interspersed with prayers; the first minister is well aware that the best way to a rival politician’s heart is through his stomach — or there’s the cash anyway! The food of some VIPs is reportedly air lifted to the capital or wherever they happen to be loitering. The Nandipur inauguration alone cost two crore of rupees. The fabled Maharajas and Nawabs of yore could have taken and profited from our political elite’s correspondence courses in decadence and profligacy any time.

Our business community is always moaning about business being slow, of imminent starvation and the bankruptcy court, while enjoying luxurious life-styles and undertaking frequent business trips abroad. Now they are raising a storm over the 0.3 percent Withholding Tax on bank transactions imposed by the government on every citizen who does not file his annual income tax returns. Registration with the tax authorities seems to hold inexplicable and untold dangers for them. Even the robber baron industrialists of nineteenth century America (‘their touch was death’) gave away much of their fortunes to the country that had nurtured them, in the form of libraries, museums, colleges, universities and philanthropic grants. But such thoughts would never ever enter the minds of our brigand businessmen. That many of the leading landowners and industrialists are cozily sitting in parliament, constitutes a clear conflict of interest at every legislative and administrative step.

Aping the sterling example set by the elite, the ordinary folk have also taken to all sorts of mendacity for ill-gotten gain, including adulteration of foodstuffs, selling dead meat (only of animals, so far!), offering exotic meat choices, manufacturing spurious medicines, setting themselves as quacks or spiritual healers, double-your-money scams, and God knows how many other vices (thankfully) still hidden and unknown.

The lawyer-protagonist of Albert Camus’s great novel, The Fall has reached the end of his rosy bourgeois dream. He has rediscovered his memory, and with it his essential cowardice and the hypocrisy of his former daily existence. In self-exile in Amsterdam, he cries out to a compatriot, ‘No excuses ever, for anyone; that’s my principle at the outset. I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance. With me there is no giving of absolution or blessing. Everything is simply totted up, and then: ‘it comes to so much. You are an evil-doer, a satyr, a congenital liar, a homosexual, an artist, etc. Just like that. Just as flatly. In philosophy as in politics, I am for any theory that refuses to grant man innocence and for any practice that treats him as guilty…Ah, the little sneaks, play-actors, hypocrites — and yet so touching!’ The latter part being yet another exact description of our elect and the select.