The E word

Some loud thinking

The Establishment – how responsible is it for the mess we find ourselves in? Before addressing this question, a little background survey is in order.

We, as a nation, have never had more than a flimsy relationship with reality. What else explains our mastery of the art of fooling ourselves, our delusions of grandeur, our insistence on living anywhere but in the present? The reality, of course, couldn’t be more different from our day-dreams, but how does one realize that fact before climbing down from cloud-cuckoo-land?

However, for a nation that has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to come to terms with raw, unedited reality, we are remarkably good at nodding in agreement when it comes to scripted reality – hence our liking for reality shows. Except, the reality shows we love are not confined to TV. In fact, it is now quite easy to mistake the whole country for one big reality show. As is often the case with TV shows, despite knowing better the audience soon starts believing in the reality of the ‘events’, which is followed soon by vociferous cheering or booing, so that each new ‘twist’ in the tale is responded to with remarkable passion. A lot of people, in and out of showbiz, make their living thanks to this credulity and enthusiasm.

The latest such twist has arrived in the form of the spectacular return of Mustafa Kamal. Of course all TV channels showed live the excruciatingly long press-conference, and there was the inevitable excitement in the air. Ever the optimists, many analysts have asked whether it’s a game changer in the context of Karachi. In the best journalistic tradition, many have demanded fair investigation to get to the bottom of the affair. As if we have ever got to the bottom of anything in the past! Many pundits have applauded Kamal for his courage and for answering, albeit belatedly, the call of his conscience.

Kamal may be telling the truth, or not – who knows! But haven’t we had enough game changers already – Saulat Mirza, Naveed Commando, Zulfiqar Mirza, Ayyan Ali, Uzair Baloch, the Memogate, to name but a few? Isn’t it time one got a little suspicious, queasy actually, on yet another instance of the truth turning up at just the right moment? Aren’t you disgusted by the sneaky, informer-type justice of this ilk? But I digress – what passes as justice in the land of the pure, is not my subject today. The point is that nothing meaningful has ever come out of such ‘developments’. But the script faithfully keeps churning one half-witted-news-story-of-the-week after another, and the citizenry keeps obliging by lapping it all up. It is quite conceivable that by now a large chunk of people would have had enough of this excitement – call it overkill – but that obviously hasn’t happened.

The tell-tale sign of a bogus story is that a week or two down the line nobody remembers it. The story that was all the rage last week is nowhere to be seen this week, because an equally bogus and half-witted story has taken its place. The show must go on.

So the script is undoubtedly there; the audience too. The question is: who writes the script? Which takes us back to where we started from.

It is believed by many that it is the Establishment that is responsible for the script. That it’s such a coherent and well-oiled system that nothing can happen in the country without its blessings; That it comprises pivotal bureaucrats, politicians, judges, military men, journalists, and – by virtue of having successfully covered all its bases – it is unbeatable; That it has temporal continuity as well; That for all practical purposes, it is the clique that invisibly rules the country. If all this is true, the genesis of most of our problems can be traced back to the Establishment. I am skeptical.

I believe the concept of an all-powerful Establishment is a myth. The often desperate script, which sometimes makes WWE wrestlers to appear real in comparison, is something one can hardly expect from an all-powerful Establishment. I think the script is evolving spontaneously as all the different players push and pull in different directions. That the script is of low-quality is indicative of the low quality of the players themselves.

Playing the devil’s advocate however, it may be worthwhile to pursue the all-powerful Establishment theory, in order to see how far it can be defended. With all the resources at its disposal, is a Mustafa Kamal entry or an Uzair Baloch exit the best the Establishment can come up with? Why did the Establishment not evolve over the years into something more sophisticated; and its scripts more realistic and interesting? Well, perhaps it did not need to. Perhaps it’s not very smart precisely because it has always been too strong for the competition. Perhaps it did not need to write better scripts because the audience loves the scripts as they are. I am only speculating here.

What can we expect in the future? Dinosaurs were very strong too; but they weren’t very smart either. They dominated for a fair while but then they got extinct, and intelligent bystanders took over. Are there any intelligent bystanders around – the politicians, the public? Don’t get your hopes too high! I note that this particular script is going horribly off-track; and gloomy as well.

Well, no matter, because of course we are only playing the devil’s advocate here. I now put the proverbial pen down by restating my original position, viz., the concept of an all-powerful, yet a not all-wise entity is incomprehensible, at least as far as I am concerned.