When dreams are delusions

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  • And why we fall for same old tricks over and over again

What we aspire to become, as an individual or as a nation, is based either on the dreams we believe in or delusions we cherish. Those who chase dreams either succeed or fail. Those who aim to realise their delusions (read false beliefs and convictions) ultimately reduce themselves to standing object of derision and ridicule. We ‘think’ of ourselves as chasers of dream. We ‘are’ victims of our delusions.

And this has been our lot since we learned to dream, chased them passionately and generation in, generation out learned that we’ve been sold delusions wrapped as dreams.

Those having knack for history know them politicians well and how since the dawn of civilisation they use of two words to enchant their followers: change and hope. PM Imran Khan did nothing new, although he believes otherwise. PM wanted to rule (and convinced himself that he wanted to ‘serve’). However, there was a catch, the lot he now rules over has all the signature flaws and faults of ordinary, eternal Homo sapiens. We hail from easily bored species who crave and yearn for steady dose of spectacle. Many of us hook ourselves to the one who promises ‘things which are not’. As our PM did when he wanted to become PM.

We now just want, by hook or crook, to enliven our routine-dictated existences by a grand performance on daily basis. Back in the days PM Khan instilled more meaning and zest in our lives than a good old dose of hope. Well, now we want this hope to materialise. Now we, the good people of fatherland who’ve reached the ‘just around the corner’ want all them things good and grand we have been promised. Maybe it is not the first time we have mistaken another bellwether for long-awaited and promised deliverer. We have had them before, we have one now and won’t run short of more in future.

I’ve quoted this excerpt before and will do so again for I wish I had a fraction of crispness and clarity of expression that seer of our times Eric Hoffer had. Writing back in 1951 he summed up all that ails our marching rebels in power today. Here is an excerpt from his magnum opus, ‘The True Believer’: “What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more — and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation. It is as if they said: ‘Not only our blemished selves, but the lives of all our contemporaries, even the most happy and successful, are worthless and wasted.’”

PM Khan heads ‘once’ corrupt, good-for-nothing, utterly devious, and downright pathetic parliament

Everything was hell and brimstone, when PM Khan was not PM. Ask ten random people and you’ll know how much things have changed (or not).

Now it is Prime Minister Imran Khan’s circus, and his monkeys and his act and his neck. All of us, those who voted for him or not are interested in is the show, so rage on and amuse us pronto.

Remember the times when sit-ins, dharnas didn’t work out even lock-down backfired and had to be turned into ‘Youm-e-Tashakur’. And then, Their Lords showed lack of spine, the whole court got jumpy. What to say of other institutions, since they were deteriorated beyond repair. And People, well, they were, are and always will in love with their cozy, comfortable living rooms, bed rooms, and cafes or dhabas. Khan’s own party workers, who are always ready to dance their hearts out on tunes of hope and change were reluctant to get their bodies bruised by one proper spell of indiscriminate lathi charge.

Now, all of the above is ancient history. PM Khan heads ‘once’ corrupt, good-for-nothing, utterly devious, and downright pathetic parliament. PM Khan, we want change you promised. You sold us dreams, they are slowly and steadily turning out to be delusions.

Our Prime Minister Imran Khan is certainly a man of action, full of vigour and desperate to alter the dates and fortunes of Pakistan around. He promised to save and provide a decent life for the ‘the Forgotten Man’ of Pakistan — a labourer from KPK, a petty bank accountant from Southern Punjab, a scion of an industrialist from Faisalabad, a student of MSc from Balochistan, a Christian from Karachi, an unemployed man in his mid-30s from everywhere — think of him as their deliverer. Now that Kaptaan is done travelling the road less taken, now he is on the path that has led many a great men to their perdition.