Is another French Revolution around the corner?
Saeed Qureshi
President Zardari, on more than one occasions, said that the best
revenge against the enemies was democracy. By these comments, perhaps,
he meant revenge against the assassins of Benazir Bhutto and bringing
the former President Musharraf to justice. Definitely democracy is
taking its revenge but against whom? Not against the enemies of Pakistan
or those who wronged this great country. As the situations stands now,
the victims of the revenge are the very people of Pakistan and not their
tormentors. The revenge of democracy is a smokescreen to protect the
thugs of both the past and the present who brought this magnificent
country to such an abyss. It’s not a genuine democracy that the people
of Pakistan voted for. It is a blend of oligarchy, aristocracy and
plutocracy. The party in power is doing just the opposite to its
charter, manifesto and the elections pledges. From President down to an
advisor, the ruling cabal looks insensitive to the appalling and
spiraling public woes. The best strategy adopted by the President of
Pakistan is to keep mum, duck and lend a deaf ear to the deafening
public outcry. So is the prime minister and so are the ministerial
legions.
The governance is in a state of paralysis. The country called Pakistan
is reeling under a regime whose conduct of the state affairs not only
exudes incompetence but a criminal dereliction of their responsibilities
towards a nation that foisted them to power through their votes for a
change: a change for the better and not for worse. That a government can
be so non-challant, devious and unmindful of country’s downslide, is
hard to believe. The attitude of the ruling junta is attuned to protect
the status quo of the past regime, although they have not been able to
uphold even that ignoble objective. The power outrages, the shortage of
gas and petrol, the soaring prices, the rampant lawlessness, the
dysfunctional state institutions and public and private departments and
lack of any apparent inclination by the government to find solutions,
speak for the unspeakable state of anarchy Pakistan is steeped in. While
the clique in power is either apathetic or evasive to the country’s
drift towards a failed state syndrome, the political forces on the other
side of the isles are negligent too to come forward and throw a
challenge to the party in power and proffer an action plan to stem the
rot. In time of crisis the contending political forces rouse the civil
society, rekindle hope and provide a way to alternate leadership. There
seems to be all quiet on the front of other political parties whose
responsibly is to challenge the writ of a corrupt and mismanaged
government.
With the Pakistan army fighting a war for others and killing its own
people, a united Pakistan is under severe threat of disintegration. Even
if it survives such a dreadful eventuality, it would still function on
weak foundations of diverse divisions ranging from ethnic, sectarian to
regional and soci-economic disparities. The lurking issues of giving an
independent status to the judiciary, setting in motion a transparent and
unalloyed accountability and justice process, reforming the
institutions, removing the repugnant clauses from the constitution,
making the parliament strong and supreme, enforcing law for peace and
security, weeding out corruption, restoring national sovereignty,
unfurling a revolutionary economic charter and so on. Was Pakistan ever
in such acute troubles that the people are deprived of at least a hope
for a better future? A government that cannot even start a process of
finding the killers of it’s party chief cannot be expected of showing
any serious concern for the people’s afflictions. The Pakistan Peoples
Party, a truly grass root party, for the first time, is fast losing
people’s support and sympathy. The reasons are obvious. It has become
part of the loot, lethargy and the custodian of a corrupt and decadent
system that the people wanted to throw off.
The quid pro quo between Asif Zardari and former president Musharraf was
“I shall baptize you like as a new born and you give a complete reprieve
for my sins” is at the root of all the pervading rot. People of Pakistan
wanted a complete break with the despicable past. The PPP government is
more willing to dance to the foreign tunes than their unworthy
predecessors. The PPP party that should have demonstrated a
revolutionary posture is laid flat in front of foreign masters. Besides
it doesn’t have any vision to drive Pakistan out of the prevailing
hurricane of problems. Undoubtedly, People of Pakistan wanted a truly
democratic government but with that they also aspired to see the end of
the sufferings and suffocation of the 9 years authoritarian rule of Gen.
Pervez Musharraf. The democracy that has been ushered in Pakistan is
tainted with many a question marks. The incumbent government has a stamp
of the dark past. The democratic dispensation of PPP that should have
been ideologically and conceptually against the dictatorship is resigned
to be an extension of the unpopular and hated regime of Gen Musharraf.
So where do we go from here? After full one year of saddling in power,
the PPP has earned only the ire of the people of Pakistan. Its
indolence, adhocism and diffidence to even acknowledge the existence of
the problems, what to speak of resolving them is, heavily telling upon
the image of the party. The lack of interest in even initiating any
investigation in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto besides Asif
Zaradri’s ‘go easy’ style with a tainted past are fast eroding the
esteem of the party in the public view. The PPP is caught unaware in an
internal mounting crescendo of myriad problems while externally it is
the recipient of a shameful legacy of making Pakistan as a mercenary and
surrogate of America and the West. Frankly, its cadres and leaders were
not prepared for an unexpected take over of power that came sooner than
later. Their inability and paucity of experience in politics and
governance is the main impediment in coping with the big challenges that
keep piling up by the day. The rank and file of the PPP now running the
show are either novices or newcomers to the galore and glamour of power.
Their revolutionary spirit seems to be subdued and overwhelmed by the
amazing and awesome glare of power wielding. They might be thinking to
make hay while the sun of power was shining, leaving aside the thorny
challenges of amelioration and betterment to others. Alternately, they
might be under the delusion that they were still popular as they were
before their advent in power corridors. Still another possibility is
that they believe that the current bad times would soon wither away and
the stability and peace would come back.
With these three strands of mindset, let the PPP echelons be cautioned
that they will soon have to face the bulging and swelling wrath and fury
of the people haunted and hounded by miserable living conditions. The
signs of such a public outcry and rebellion are manifest in lock-outs of
the industries, the squatting of the roads and highways as well as the
frenzied rallies. The PPP’s unpopularity graph was never low and it had
never fallen from people’s grace as now. Is another French Revolution
around the corner?
—The writer is a Texas-based correspondent of Pakistan Observer.
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