Really, sirs!

By Kamran Shafi

I mean, really sirs! What is all this about the whole shebang being in imminent danger of collapse through another intervention by the men on horseback, some would say in our case, on donkey back? Several op-ed writers are going blue in the face reminding us of the ‘danger’ that lurks.

Some of them, aghast at our stupidity, ask if we did not know that the Pakistan Army considers Pervez Musharraf the legitimately elected President of Pakistan! And that it would therefore do what it had to do to ensure that he stays president for all of his (so-called) term! They do not explain, of course, why the army should be in so exalted a position, and if indeed it is, why it should be allowed to maintain it so that it is the arbiter of what is constitutional or not, legitimate or not.

Others tell us that if there was any move at impeaching the man/hauling him up before a court of law, the army would consider it was being tried as an institution, and would therefore, ‘act’! They leave the rest to our imagination as Pakistanis who have seen army intervention all of our miserable lives. They do not explain how the army would have the gall to go against as clear a verdict as that delivered against Musharraf on Feb 18, 2008.

What utter tripe and nonsense! In so many ways, that it isn’t even funny. For, just look at the four army interventions and what state the country was left in after respective dictators left the scene. Ayub Khan laid the foundation stone of corruption and of the break-up of Pakistan; Yahya Khan saw the job through — boy did he! — in the process making it convenient for the army to be humiliated as few armed forces have been humiliated.

Then came the beauty Ziaul Haq who brought the country drugs and the Kalashnikov and obscurantism and sectarianism and hate and strife; followed by the general who drove a knife into the very heart of Pakistan by his macho and swaggering attitude towards the smaller provinces: “They won’t know what hit them”, when he engineered, say, the murder of Nawab Bugti and the tamasha in Fata.

And towards politics in general, speaking down to the main political parties and their leaders and putting in his lot with what he thought would be more pliable partners, the Chaudhrys. In view of the above, how many times should one have to say that the sooner the army acts and overthrows our emerging democracy the better for democracy and by extension, for the people of the country? For we shall then be rid of any last vestiges of respect some Pakistanis still have for the army.

For, quite apart from the fact that martial laws in Pakistan have always been dismal failures in every way and in every single department of governance, this last experiment takes the cake for being The Mother of Inept Governance. As our American friends would say, Gen (retd) Musharraf spectacularly failed, ‘every which way’, to provide the country even a semblance of governance.

Whether it is the food crisis with flour virtually unavailable, and when it is, at exorbitant prices; to the lies told to the nation re: its economic health by shamelessly massaging the figures; to not one new electricity generating plant set up in the nine very long years that he held the country by its throat; to delaying a hike in POL products and therefore in every consumer item just to help the King’s party in the elections, his rule was an unmitigated disaster.

Indeed, reflect upon the disastrous way in which Pakistan’s relations with America were/are going if only because of his thoughtless and self-serving subservience to American dictates in virtually every department of statecraft.

Indeed, many of us writing in the press cautioned Musharraf repeatedly that America would not stand as a silent spectator while he went about running with the hare and hunting with the hounds as re: the way he was handling Fata: now running hot, now running cold, and standing the whole political system there, on its head.

But wait. Did one of the ‘official sources’, read the President’s Lodge (once Army House), not say as recently as April 6, that Musharraf was only staying on in the President’s Lodge because if he were to leave office the Americans would attack Fata?! So what was this attack all about then? Could it have been a warning from Dubya that his buddy should be let alone, or else?

No sirs, no. If the English, under orders of parliament could dig the corpses of Oliver Cromwell who overthrew parliament in his coup as a warning to other wannabe dictators, why can we not try Musharraf in a court of law?

To the matter of the judges restoration now: how is it that Aitzaz Ahsan is now being vilified by op-ed writers mentioned above, and who side openly and subjectively with the dying (or is it?) dictatorship and its henchmen? I thought Aitzaz stood up for what is right and moral and constitutional when he opposed the acts of a uniformed general to sack the superior judiciary! A general, mark, who admits he acted illegally and unconstitutionally!

I have oft said, in these very pages, that Pakistan is indeed a ‘unique’ country, and we a very ‘unique’ people. I must be right!

As to the behaviour of the People’s Party, silly constitutional package and all, all one can say is that it is shameful beyond words; and that unless its downward spiral is halted immediately if not sooner the party will simply disintegrate.

Finally, even if you take Sherry Rehman’s assurances that the government of the Citadel of Islam had nothing in the world to do with the re-banning of two talk shows as the truth, shame on the federal government for allowing the Dubai authorities to do what they have done, and therefore giving the PPP a bad name.

What sort of government is it that, unbeknownst to it, any Tom, Dick or Harry can get up and telephone someone in Dubai and two popular shows go off the air?

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk