Back to square one?

Here we go again

It seems we won’t ever go off the beaten path; at least not as far as our political journey – led by political and non-political actors as it is – is concerned.

But the first thing, of course, will be to indentify political and non-political actors. Well, the fact of the matter is that a majority of those who are currently occupying the political landscape fall into the non-political category – but we know and call them politicians anyway. Though there are countless people who are in politics, when we will talk about ‘politicians’ here, we will be referring to those who are ruling the roost today and are in the most leadership role.

Some of them were brought at the helm by accidents; Asif Ali Zardari, for example. Some came here grazing in search of greener financial pastures; Nawaz Sharif and company. Others are here because they are divine; Fazl ur Rahman, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and the likes. There are also those who are politicians but only because of heredity; Bilawal, Maryam, Hamza, etc. And then there are those who had nothing else to do to after retiring from their more playful jobs; Imran Khan, and – let me think about some others.

So, when one goes around the people called political leaders, one finds very little that is political about them; though leadership roles have been thrust – and entrusted – upon them. People take them as their leaders and entrust their destinies into their hands because of ignorance and other compulsions like sustenance and mobility (feudal lordship, urban patronage – naukri, promotion, admission, traffic challan, passport etc).

But who and what created these genres of political actors in the first place? As already pointed out, two major factors are illiteracy and poverty. But illiteracy and poverty are not something divinely ordained for the people of Pakistan forever. So who conspired to sustain and prolog these maladies here when they are regressing in most parts of the world? And who has created this leadership of the deaf and dumb and the blind?

The political scene that we are currently witnessing has evolved over the years since the creation of this country and everyone has played his or her role in bringing it here. However, the most crucial factor is the discontinuity which the democratic process suffered at the hands of military dictators.

They disrupted the continuity of the democratic process which stunted the development of the ‘political system’ per se. Preventing the political system to take a natural course hampered the emergence and growth of genuine political leadership in the country.

In order to overcome the shortage of leaders and fill the leadership vacuum, dictators started looking for and promoting ‘leaders’ who could do their bidding and provide legitimacy to their illegitimate rules. This goes without saying that the vacant leadership roles in the political compartment could be filled with individuals with certain negative qualities. For example; a) they must not be people with strong political standing of their own (people with some standing were those dislodged by the dictator, in the first place), b) they must have some skeletons to hide in their cupboard (to be blackmailed into supporting and siding with the usurper), c) they must have no character (timid, spineless so that there is no chance of their standing up to their creator), and d) they must be unscrupulous (unprincipled and unlikely to tell right from wrong).

No wonder, after 33 years of direct dictatorship in three installments, one finds an abundance of such people who are labeled as ‘politicians’, giving bad name to politics and democracy.

But that is not all. In the process to groom characters through whom to cut down to size popular – if not ‘genuine’ – leaders, ‘extra non-political’ and ultra-right elements were allowed and encouraged to assume the mantle of reformers and don the robe of politicians. They were helped by the rightist national narrative constructed for the pursuance of foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan and with regard to India and Kashmir.

But ultra-right leadership didn’t just prop up as a result of some foreign policy objectives; an Islamist narrative was equally useful in achieving some internal objectives as well. The look that Pakistan wore after Ziaul Haq’s fateful years in power and the policies pursued by his successors left little room for independent – or open-minded – civilian rulers. To keep them under check, it was necessary to bring into question the legitimacy of the ‘system’ – democracy – they were representing and it was possible only through a bigger weapon, like religion.

So welcome to Pakistan, where you find democracy in a shambles after about seventy years of its existence and where people long for a system based on religious utopia; and a civilian leadership most of which is not a product of natural democratic process. Even the ones which are not ‘genuine’ but which have managed to become ‘popular’ are declared ‘security risk’ and ‘traitors’, always working against the interests of Pakistan. They are alleged to be furthering foreign agenda, especially of India and Israel.

No wonder, most of them are non-accommodative towards each others’ point of view, refusing to resolve political differences in a political way, i.e. through dialogue or state’s legitimate political institutions.

Here, politics has become a war in itself in which everything is fair as long as it can bring the ‘enemy’ down. No surprise that while both the parties – currently at loggerheads with each other – are talking about the danger of a possible intervention of the ‘third force’ as a result of their nasty power struggle, they are adamant not to change their ways, come hell or high water.

But they say they are not to be blamed. Imran Khan has already stated that if the third force intervened, it will be Nawaz Sharif to blame. While Talal Chaudhry has said, Imran Khan is dragging military in politics. And both accuse each other of acting for foreign inimical powers.

It seems, nothing has changed and nothing will change as long as we are led by leaders made up of non-political stuff. The people again will lead these people into a struggle for democracy if, God forbids, something bad happened to the system. And we will keep on moving in a circle.