Will this cruelest month see end of ‘corrupt’ politicians?
Here we are again, and we’ve been here many times before. Only one of our four messiahs of yesteryears is alive, ill and abroad, rest of our saviours are resting in peace. May God bless them.
That leaves us with the rotten lot, the politicians — that gang of unscrupulous, blood-sucking, money-minting creatures whom we love to loathe. Every decade or so, they manage to trick us into believing that they’ve mended ways, they’ve atoned for sins committed, that all they want is another chance at redemption.
We give it to them only to know that our uroboros kept on gnawing and renewing itself.
Let us leave these knavish politicos and their Byzantine empire for a moment. And focus on our sins, big and small, venial or irremissible.
Our original sin was not that we had a wrong lot of saviours. Our sin was that we blindfoldedly trusted them. We trusted them with things earthly and celestial. We trusted them with here-and-now and here-and-after and everything in between. We trusted them with economy, health, and education. We trusted them with even the trust we did not have in ourselves. But the most unpardonable sin we committed was to entrust our saviours with absolute power and expect them to dispense ‘across-the-board accountability’.
Remember the slogan, ‘Pehlay Ehtesaab, Phir Intikhaab’, — First accountability, then election. Once again, the same slogan is being raised. The same script is being rehashed, rehearsed and presented forward for our kind consumption. The beauty of drama is that actors change while characters stay the same. This time too some actors are old, some are new, the characters, however, persevere.
Our original sin was not that we had a wrong lot of saviours. Our sin was that we blindfoldedly trusted them. We trusted them with things earthly and celestial. We trusted them with here-and-now and here-and-after and everything in between
Now a word or two about accountability. Sirs and ma’ams, accountability is an offspring of justice. Justice, lest we forget, is the attribute of the impartial, it is the habit of the unbiased, it is the wisdom of the one who has nothing to gain from the fruits of the farm under dispute. Justice, to cut to the chase, can never be done or demanded by the one who benefits from the punishment pronounced.
Once again, our cultish cravings call for a sacrifice. We are willing to selectively slay some of the perennial corrupt politicians as we believe only then can we get rid of terrorism, load shedding, inflation, nihilism, immoral practices, overpopulation, unemployment and healthcare. We also religiously believe that once we get rid of these debauched, crooked politicians enemy will stop sending its commander level officers in our country to sabotage the Elysium (read CPEC) we are currently manufacturing.
Out of four martial laws, I witnessed the last one. I was nine years old when the commando ousted the then and now PM Nawaz Sharif. I saw the ousted PM in person only a few months back when he came to inaugurate a housing society near my home. I had not the slightest idea back then that the man we all were hailing will lose it all within months. Even more uncanny was the day when the same Nawaz Sharif was elected PM 14 years after his ousting.
The only thing that was out of ordinary that day was black TV screen that was mum and dark. 12 October 1999 gave us our latest liberator. And he failed us. He failed us utterly. He raised the slogans of liberalism and left us high and dry with a society fragmented across sectarian lines more so than ever. Again the one he ousted came back to power. And the majority of us are hell bent to allow history to repeat itself sans rhyme.
Since we are condemned to this Sisyphean cycle of rise and fall and rise again to fall again till eternity, let us perform a thought experiment to hush away our boredom for the time being and maybe we can learn a thing or two. Imagine a corrupt bloke, and we have evidence of his corruption. What should we do? Should we take our captain or major or colonel friend to his home and teach him a lesson (oust him?) and trust our ‘uniformed’ friend with all that belonged to that ‘corrupt’ fella? Or should we take some other course?
Ask yourself this. Do we really want justice? Are we really willing to call a spade a spade? Has it ever crossed our minds that may be… maybe we don’t want justice. Maybe we want revenge. Maybe we want to hunt witches and then burn them at the stake. Maybe we are jingoists in our heart of hearts. Maybe our savage instincts have overpowered our civilised, gentle selves.
Ask yourself this. Do we really want justice? Are we really willing to call a spade a spade? Has it ever crossed our minds that may be … maybe we don’t want justice. Maybe we want revenge
Enough of these maybe’s. Let me tell you something that I am certain of that if, and let me tell you it’s a very big if, we hear a ‘Meray Azeez Hum-Watnoo’ anytime soon, some fifteen or twenty years from now a lad of my age will be jotting down another op-ed piece like this one ruing what I fear now.
And always remember, to hail the mighty one is the easiest act in the world. In a democracy people strive to tame all who are mighty and sinewy. A point to ponder, we can always vote out the politicians every five years, the troubling reality is that it takes decades to boot out a ‘khaki’.
So, this time around, let us vote them ‘corrupt’ politicians out rather than root for the gentlemen in ‘khaki’ to boot them out and after some time themselves be drummed out.