Pirates, not of the Caribbean

Delusion-plagued Don Quixotes

The not-so-accidental president had put on his usual expression and the staged smile on his face was as wide as can be on someone other than the Cheshire Cat. This was in the first photo-op session with his ‘inspired’ choice as the latest ‘elected’ prime minister of Pakistan. He was probably the only person grinning from ear to ear in the whole country and doing very well, thank you, as were his army of cronies.

This façade of democracy, masking the familiar one-man show, is the best thing that ever happened to them. But the rehabilitation of this unfortunate nation, once they are mercifully and thankfully through with their tender attentions, promises to be a gigantic task indeed for their legitimate successors.

For otherwise, their ‘rich’ legacy includes, among other dubious distinctions, a cruelly disappointed and dazed nation, and a reeling electorate, who are still trying to figure out what had hit them hot at the heels of the impulsive commando. But while the Musharraf madness, which came towards the latter part of his rule, can be forgotten if never forgiven, the daily turmoil of the Zardari era from its very first day will probably remain in the net of memory till the grave.

A browbeaten and despairing nation is again faced with the same old questions: to whom can it turn for relief, a compassionate response and redressing of the many ills and wrongs done to it by the present callous lot of rulers? The state and its apparatus appear simply to have melted away, except for its coercive and exploitative parts. Indeed, one wonders if the famous phrase ‘democracy is the best revenge’ attributed to ‘Bibi Sahiba’ has not been twisted to add the unsaid words ‘on Pakistan and its peoples’.

When an incompetent nonentity is selected and foisted on a beleaguered nation already mired in multiple crises in the fair name of democracy and the people’s will, it can be argued that the medical report on patient ‘X’s psychological condition submitted by New York doctors Stephen Reich and Philip Saltiel to the London High Court might have a ring of truth to them. A frightening thought, though on the plus side, such grounds of emotional instability spelt out beforehand in black and white by professional shrinks, and backed by a battery of well-heeled lawyers might come in handy in a courtroom if the need arises at a future date. Remember, patient ‘X’ successfully evaded court appearances with this stratagem in the Surrey Mansion case, one in a long list of corruption cases ‘honouring’ his name.

Now it is imperative that the corrupt, the ruthless wreckers and subversive elements who have managed to penetrate high offices, betrayed the people’s trust, destroyed self-belief, undermined confidence in the country and led the nation to moral and financial bankruptcy must be held accountable for their misdeeds. Above all, the looted billions so fervently denied but actually cunningly salted away abroad over the years, must be recovered even if it takes a decade. And this applies to all the accomplices in serial corruption, including the ‘Raiwind Ranch’.

The US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent contemptuous and overbearing statements on Pakistan were neither an aberration nor an accident. They were made easier by force of habit of sixty years of American over lordship and by the nuclear armed Islamic nation’s servile leadership, an incorrigible addict of regular dollar doses for its ‘kingly pleasures’. The sole superpower had always considered its luckless ally a doormat and a smiling slave of the Uncle Tom variety, or else it would be bombed into the Stone Age!

After 9/11, when US warships in the Arabian Sea fired their first cruise missiles into Afghanistan, the Pakistani authorities (read the willing commando) were informed of their over-flight in their territory at the very last minute, and that too only to avoid an accidental war with the ‘friendly’ neighbour to the East. That is what the ‘ally’ thought of our territorial (or air space) integrity long before the drone attacks began.

To gain the outside world’s ear and respect, a truly nationalist leadership of impeccable integrity and credibility, capable of taking bold independent decisions, is essential. But what we see today in the establishment is a sorry mockery, one apparently drowning in a sea of corruption and cronyism and an easy prey to foreign pressures due to its astronomical foreign assets and fixation with deals and commissions.

Sometimes, it looks as if Pakistan is being singled out by a cruel Fate, like the classical hero of an ancient Greek drama. There is no respite from the hard blows and like the protagonist of a Greek tragedy, who at the denouement is usually ‘more acted upon than acting’, so are we as a nation only reacting to the events that daily menace us and even threaten to overwhelm us.

At other times, the well-trodden conspiracy road beckons siren-like, again turning one’s attention to the text of a certain tract dating from 1897 and originating in a back room of Basel, Switzerland, for possible answers. There is also the strange case of the 83 parliamentarians of uncertain origin, nationality and closely-guarded antecedents, safely ensconced in the two Houses. Do the obviously self-destructive policies and decisions made by the leadership at various times reflect the inner working of this mysterious element in our body-politic?

But to be true, delusion-plagued Don Quixotes, with obsessively mercenary mindsets, can cause more damage to the country than all the explosive writings and plans set out in the alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion or any number of Fifth Columnists. And to our utter dismay and misfortune, we have many of such ilk in various guises trampling the corridors of power today.

The writer is a freelance columnist.