By Amir Zia
August 18, 2014
The News
The Pakistani idea of revolution or revolutionary struggle falls in the category of the theatre of the absurd. Amidst all the glare and racket of 24/7 television, clever one-liners in the new media, our politicians and many of their innocent followers think that staging revolution remains akin to going to a dinner party or playing an exciting 20/20 cricket match which guarantees instant results.
Most of our current set of politicians attempt to sell clichéd slogans, borrowed ideas and half-baked truths to their followers. Originality and creativity is certainly not their forte. The very symbolism of their campaigns, protests and sometimes even manifestos are no more than poor-quality, third-rate aping of great concepts and mighty struggles.
Take for instance the concept of the ‘long march’ which has been lingering in our politics for the past several decades and has been rechristened – once again – as the ‘Azadi March’ by Imran Khan and the ‘Revolutionary March’ by Dr Allama Tahirul Qadri.
Before these two gentlemen, some of our frontline politicians including Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Qazi Hussain Ahmed all tried to stage this or that kind of march – including the Train March, the Million March etc. But the Pakistani versions of ‘long marches’ proved to be not even a passing shadow of the historical Chinese ‘Long March’ carried out by the communist forces under Chairman Mao Zedong’s command in 1934-35. This march spanned nearly 370 days and covered 9,000 kilometres, passing through some of the most difficult terrain.
The Chinese Long March was a retreat undertaken by the Red Army to dodge the counter-revolutionary forces of Chiang Kai-shek and marked Chairman Mao’s steep climb to the power.
The Chinese Long March is seen as one of the greatest physical feats of the 20th Century in which barely 10,000 of the Red Army soldiers survived – out of a total of around 87,000. Mao himself remained in the forefront with his soldiers, never abandoning them for rest or recreation.
Compare Mao with the political pygmies of the world of Pakistani politicians, who in their ‘revolutionary’ zeal travel in first class or plush bullet-proof vehicles and rest in sprawling homes after every few hours. Indeed, even the slightest symbolic comparison of the Pakistani marchers with the Chinese one appears as a crude joke. Barring the farcical copy of the name, there is nothing remotely comparable between the Pakistani and Chinese marchers. For one, Pakistan marchers have always been on wheels. The Imran-Qadri duo is certainly not the only one that stands guilty of bluffing the masses.
Some light stone pelting by rivals, a first few drops of rain or being on the road for 40 hours or so make them yearn for the solitude, peace and comfort of their home as PTI chairman Imran Khan did when he left his troops at Gujranwala to speed up his journey towards Islamabad. Definitely, Imran has not done anything which the current breed of Pakistani politicians normally don’t practice when pitted against the odds. However, in the initial round of his campaign aimed to dislodge Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan has cut a sorry figure before his followers and critics alike. Will he be able to bounce back in round two during his ‘dharna’ (sit-in) at the federal capital and lead from the front? Perhaps it is too early to say this as these lines are written on this cloudy Saturday afternoon.
But if Imran is serious in getting Sharif’s resignation – leaving aside the debate whether his demand is constitutional or unconstitutional – our former cricketing hero needs to improve his game and put up a better show than what he did by escaping from Gujranwala.
The ‘million march’ campaigns announced at the drop of the hat by none other than the Jamaat-e-Islami since the days of its former ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed also proves one delusionary exercise. Since my reporting days in the early 1990s to this date, never once were a million marchers at the disposal of the Jamaat. Yes, there had been tens of thousands of people attending their street shows, but the figure of million remains a toll order. Fifty thousand or 100,000, maybe a little more or less did participate. Yet, most of our media rather than calling a spade a spade always went by the figure or the label given by the organisers. That’s what we call intellectual honesty – Pakistani style.
The Pakistani idea of revolution or revolutionary struggle also falls in the category of the theatre of the absurd. Amidst all the glare and racket of 24/7 television, clever one-liners in the new media, our politicians and many of their innocent followers think that staging revolution remains akin to going to a dinner party or playing an exciting 20/20 cricket match which guarantees instant results. This underlines that they remain totally devoid of the understanding of the political process and a sense of history. Their revolution or call of a ‘naya’ (new) Pakistan begins and ends with just a change of faces in the corridors of power. And the new faces are none other but their own.
The true meaning of revolution – which destroys the old structures, brings sweeping socio-economic changes in a society with one brutal act of violence, and topples the ruling elite and replaces them with a new one – remains nowhere on their agenda. Even revolution becomes a sham slogan in Pakistan just as many believe democracy has already become in this Islamic Republic.
Our similarity with all the great concepts, symbols and struggles begins and end with the tag, which Pakistani politicians have mastered in adopting for their gimmickries.
The very issues that dominate the narrative of our politics also remain mind- boggling. The top two or three issues dominating Pakistani political scene remain absent from the discourse of the ruling party as well as the opposition.
The challenge of militancy and extremism – the most pressing issue for Pakistan – appears to exist only for the armed forces. The civil government is content by paying mere lip-service to the cause and remains a reluctant partner in the effort to defeat the local and foreign militants.
The opposition parties demanding Sharif’s resignation do not consider this is an issue worthy even to mention during their protests. The friendly opposition also has a wishy-washy position on the issue.
The effective military operation against terrorists has provided space to the civilian leadership to carry out reforms not just in the conflict hit areas but the entire country. These reforms should aim to de-radicalise and defeat the extremist mindset. But there is hardly any push in this direction. The civilian leadership has also been unable to provide the much needed support to the efforts of the security forces by introducing the required judicial reforms for quick dispensation of justice. The ban on the death penalty continues to remain the biggest dichotomy in our legal system with courts handing down death sentences, but the executive failing to implement them.
The fragile state of economy, poor governance, sorrowful state of social indicators including education and healthcare, soaring crime, the ordinary man’s inability to get cheap and speedy justice and other such issues are nowhere on the radar of our rulers and the pseudo revolutionary or friendly opposition parties wanting to save the system.
There is too much politics, too much political excitement around us to keep the nation on the tenterhooks, but there is too little awareness, too little debate and discourse and hardly any effort to address genuine issues.
Compare the performance of our politicians with India’s hard-line Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who on the occasion of his country’s Independence Day, focused his speech not on grand plans but about issues that bother the common Indian every day. Issues like provision of toilets to hundreds of millions of people, highlighting the barbaric practice of killing the girl child, slamming the rape culture and taking pride in the growing and expanding digital India.
The Indian premier appears to have his hand on the pulse of India. What about our politicians? They seem to dwell on some other planet which remains out of bound for ordinary Pakistanis.
August 18, 2014
The News
The Pakistani idea of revolution or revolutionary struggle falls in the category of the theatre of the absurd. Amidst all the glare and racket of 24/7 television, clever one-liners in the new media, our politicians and many of their innocent followers think that staging revolution remains akin to going to a dinner party or playing an exciting 20/20 cricket match which guarantees instant results.
Most of our current set of politicians attempt to sell clichéd slogans, borrowed ideas and half-baked truths to their followers. Originality and creativity is certainly not their forte. The very symbolism of their campaigns, protests and sometimes even manifestos are no more than poor-quality, third-rate aping of great concepts and mighty struggles.
Take for instance the concept of the ‘long march’ which has been lingering in our politics for the past several decades and has been rechristened – once again – as the ‘Azadi March’ by Imran Khan and the ‘Revolutionary March’ by Dr Allama Tahirul Qadri.
Before these two gentlemen, some of our frontline politicians including Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Qazi Hussain Ahmed all tried to stage this or that kind of march – including the Train March, the Million March etc. But the Pakistani versions of ‘long marches’ proved to be not even a passing shadow of the historical Chinese ‘Long March’ carried out by the communist forces under Chairman Mao Zedong’s command in 1934-35. This march spanned nearly 370 days and covered 9,000 kilometres, passing through some of the most difficult terrain.
The Chinese Long March was a retreat undertaken by the Red Army to dodge the counter-revolutionary forces of Chiang Kai-shek and marked Chairman Mao’s steep climb to the power.
The Chinese Long March is seen as one of the greatest physical feats of the 20th Century in which barely 10,000 of the Red Army soldiers survived – out of a total of around 87,000. Mao himself remained in the forefront with his soldiers, never abandoning them for rest or recreation.
Compare Mao with the political pygmies of the world of Pakistani politicians, who in their ‘revolutionary’ zeal travel in first class or plush bullet-proof vehicles and rest in sprawling homes after every few hours. Indeed, even the slightest symbolic comparison of the Pakistani marchers with the Chinese one appears as a crude joke. Barring the farcical copy of the name, there is nothing remotely comparable between the Pakistani and Chinese marchers. For one, Pakistan marchers have always been on wheels. The Imran-Qadri duo is certainly not the only one that stands guilty of bluffing the masses.
Some light stone pelting by rivals, a first few drops of rain or being on the road for 40 hours or so make them yearn for the solitude, peace and comfort of their home as PTI chairman Imran Khan did when he left his troops at Gujranwala to speed up his journey towards Islamabad. Definitely, Imran has not done anything which the current breed of Pakistani politicians normally don’t practice when pitted against the odds. However, in the initial round of his campaign aimed to dislodge Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan has cut a sorry figure before his followers and critics alike. Will he be able to bounce back in round two during his ‘dharna’ (sit-in) at the federal capital and lead from the front? Perhaps it is too early to say this as these lines are written on this cloudy Saturday afternoon.
But if Imran is serious in getting Sharif’s resignation – leaving aside the debate whether his demand is constitutional or unconstitutional – our former cricketing hero needs to improve his game and put up a better show than what he did by escaping from Gujranwala.
The ‘million march’ campaigns announced at the drop of the hat by none other than the Jamaat-e-Islami since the days of its former ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed also proves one delusionary exercise. Since my reporting days in the early 1990s to this date, never once were a million marchers at the disposal of the Jamaat. Yes, there had been tens of thousands of people attending their street shows, but the figure of million remains a toll order. Fifty thousand or 100,000, maybe a little more or less did participate. Yet, most of our media rather than calling a spade a spade always went by the figure or the label given by the organisers. That’s what we call intellectual honesty – Pakistani style.
The Pakistani idea of revolution or revolutionary struggle also falls in the category of the theatre of the absurd. Amidst all the glare and racket of 24/7 television, clever one-liners in the new media, our politicians and many of their innocent followers think that staging revolution remains akin to going to a dinner party or playing an exciting 20/20 cricket match which guarantees instant results. This underlines that they remain totally devoid of the understanding of the political process and a sense of history. Their revolution or call of a ‘naya’ (new) Pakistan begins and ends with just a change of faces in the corridors of power. And the new faces are none other but their own.
The true meaning of revolution – which destroys the old structures, brings sweeping socio-economic changes in a society with one brutal act of violence, and topples the ruling elite and replaces them with a new one – remains nowhere on their agenda. Even revolution becomes a sham slogan in Pakistan just as many believe democracy has already become in this Islamic Republic.
Our similarity with all the great concepts, symbols and struggles begins and end with the tag, which Pakistani politicians have mastered in adopting for their gimmickries.
The very issues that dominate the narrative of our politics also remain mind- boggling. The top two or three issues dominating Pakistani political scene remain absent from the discourse of the ruling party as well as the opposition.
The challenge of militancy and extremism – the most pressing issue for Pakistan – appears to exist only for the armed forces. The civil government is content by paying mere lip-service to the cause and remains a reluctant partner in the effort to defeat the local and foreign militants.
The opposition parties demanding Sharif’s resignation do not consider this is an issue worthy even to mention during their protests. The friendly opposition also has a wishy-washy position on the issue.
The effective military operation against terrorists has provided space to the civilian leadership to carry out reforms not just in the conflict hit areas but the entire country. These reforms should aim to de-radicalise and defeat the extremist mindset. But there is hardly any push in this direction. The civilian leadership has also been unable to provide the much needed support to the efforts of the security forces by introducing the required judicial reforms for quick dispensation of justice. The ban on the death penalty continues to remain the biggest dichotomy in our legal system with courts handing down death sentences, but the executive failing to implement them.
The fragile state of economy, poor governance, sorrowful state of social indicators including education and healthcare, soaring crime, the ordinary man’s inability to get cheap and speedy justice and other such issues are nowhere on the radar of our rulers and the pseudo revolutionary or friendly opposition parties wanting to save the system.
There is too much politics, too much political excitement around us to keep the nation on the tenterhooks, but there is too little awareness, too little debate and discourse and hardly any effort to address genuine issues.
Compare the performance of our politicians with India’s hard-line Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who on the occasion of his country’s Independence Day, focused his speech not on grand plans but about issues that bother the common Indian every day. Issues like provision of toilets to hundreds of millions of people, highlighting the barbaric practice of killing the girl child, slamming the rape culture and taking pride in the growing and expanding digital India.
The Indian premier appears to have his hand on the pulse of India. What about our politicians? They seem to dwell on some other planet which remains out of bound for ordinary Pakistanis.
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