I surprise myself sometimes with my own hypocrisy. I do not suffer crippling power cuts, unbearable inflation, shortages, corruption and nepotism but yet I write about it. I do not suffer the insults of office or hear the rumbles of my empty stomach or countenance the indignity of standing for hours in a queue to buy fuel or simply keep my life on hold by a roadside to allow VIP convoys to pass. I do not face soul-destroying exploitation, injustice, deprivation and lawlessness. I do not have to seek solace by clinging on to fatalism or explain minor misfortunes in my life as conspiracies. I am very much a hypocrite and I know it. What I have written above applies neatly to a vast majority of our ruling political and social elite too but there is one important difference; I am not paid by tax-payers to run and ameliorate lives. Unlike our ruling masters, I am happy to admit my hypocrisy and this is other difference.
So when was the last time to you heard Nawaz Sharif, Zardari or Fazlu admit to hypocrisy? If truth be told, it is not hypocrisy that kills us but the lies it so profusely breeds. Zardari has come out in support of PTI’s demand for recounting votes in four constituencies and suddenly many commentators are afflicted by sudden bouts of admiration and amnesia. Zardari’s extremely poor reputation is underpinned by his actions over the past three decades but especially those we witnessed when he was inflicted upon the people as the President. His modus operandi has always been the same; screw his opponents when they are in trouble in order to extract concessions for his family owned party.
The Bhutto-Zardari clan represents everything that is rotten in the state of Pakistan; corruption, nepotism and political reputations built on mausoleums, so forgive me for not jumping up and down with excitement. What are, in PML N parlance, called ‘josh-e-khitabat’ (oratorical exuberance) and ‘typos’, Zardari calls them non-hadeeth (trans. not the saying of the Mohammad pbuh). Did you work out what they are really called? Yes, lies – conceived in the warm and fertile bed of hypocrisy.
In Pakistan, not many people are ‘Sharif’ enough to become billionaires – for the simple reason that judges cost a lot of money and to have loans written off requires clinging on to power like parasites. Today, the electoral and economic health of Pakistan is measured in typos – thanks to Nawaz Sharif and his posse of 40 thieves. Nawaz Sharif says that this is not the time for negative politics; I agree. This is the time for revolutionary politics; bring down the system that produces dynastic rule of corrupt hypocrites. This week Khawaja Asif asks Pakistanis to brace themselves for more power-cuts as the ‘official’ differential between supply and demand of electricity is rather large; did he mention this to Shahbaz Sharif who has made several promises of taming the electricity dragon and dragging it into every household at an affordable price? He had also promised to drag someone else by his hair through the streets of Pakistan but let us not get distracted.
The likes of Zardari, Sharifs, Falzu and Altaf are loathe to the idea of derailment of democracy especially when Pakistan is confronted with a so-called existential war against TTP. Tax-shy chair-counter Parvaiz Rasheed advises PTI to redirect the money intended for the 14 August protest to helping IDPs. So why all this insistence on not rocking the boat? Would you rock the boat if a nicely corrupt system of ‘democracy’ allowed you to rob and steal every few years? What we have in Pakistan is not democracy; it is the making of a kingdom. The existential threat to Pakistan is from a system that allows a highly symbiotic relationship to exist between corruption and the corridors of power. Hypocrisy is the lubricant that makes it all possible.
I have said before, PTI must never underestimate its power to unify the forces of corrupt hypocrisy. You can already see the defenders of our so-called ‘democracy’ congealing into a unified resistance against the 14 August protest. The pressure is truly on and it is intense – you can tell by the number of meetings Nawaz Sharif is holding with his party leaders especially with his sulking Interior Minister, Chaurdry Nisar. He is trying to sell us a simple lie amidst all the fasting, heat, humidity, anger and power outages; he cares about the people and the lovely democracy we have. Nawaz Sharif does care but not about what he says he does.
The priority for Sharifs is precisely the same as what it has been for the past three decades; holding on the throne of Pakistan, maximising profits for their businesses and investing in safe foreign countries. Nawaz feels and cares about the pain of Pakistanis as much as a self-serving man who live a death-proof air-conditioned life on a ridiculously large estate surrounded by guava trees that bear precious fruit. Had Sharifs' been interested in provision of justice, we would not still be waiting for victims’ FIR to be lodged and suspects like Rana Sanaullah and Shabaz Sharif arrested and charged, if not for murder then at least with criminal dereliction of duty.
Imran Khan has rightly upped the ante and has now demanded a full recount of all ballots – well, there goes Nawaz Sharif’s hope of a last minute concession to deflate and undermine the D-Chowk protest. I hope Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri have factored in the deep rooted hypocrisy within the general population into their plans. In Pakistan, what we say is very different from what we do in our ordinary lives, thanks largely a dysfunctional school system and the rants of mullahs from the pulpit.
Back in the days people used to pay bribes and use influence for unlawful things but today nothing legal gets done without a bribe or a phone call. We are so used to using our connections, influence and money to screw merit and jump queues that in a post Second Independence Pakistan, we are likely to go cold turkey on a massive scale. Careful planning has to be in place today to deal with the backlash when people will be required to live lives governed by merit, decency, tolerance and justice. Coming out of this intact will be our greatest challenge and our greatest achievement.
14 August 2014 is not just a day; it is merely a very difficult beginning. On this day, I hope we will write history and become part of it. Our actions on the day will make it possible for our children to live a content, secure and prosperous Pakistan.