Negotiation Or Operation, Do It Fast!

Imran Khan said today that if the peace talks fail, we will back a fully-fledged operation together with all the parties. In my personal views the peace talks wouldn’t even begin. And even if they do, they would fail. Zero-sum game that is! But then, calling PTI and JI all the same only appears as a contour of derangement visible from the face, and behavior, of those struggling hard to blend them. JI doesn’t even consent to the starting of operation despite after the would-be failure of peace talks; they want peace talks to continue for as long they don’t fail.; but they will. The chief argument behind this notion is that we can’t give them (TTP) everything and they don’t want anything less than everything.

There is nothing wrong in believing for the sake of personal satisfaction that an opportunity to resolve the issue amicably with the TTP has to be gripped; but there is everything wrong in delaying action against the terrorists, for every day that passes without a full-blown action against the terrorists, or say resolving the issue of terrorism, is the sad day when innocents get blown up. The blood might well be on the hands of not just PTI alone but federal government too.

Both the KPK and federal governments have to contrive to deal with the issue of terrorism caused by TTP etc. The fact that some weird cultural aspects of Pakistani-politics — that is mired in distrust, hate and insane grudges — don’t allow things to go well between the two parties, whether it is PTI v PML-N or PPP v PMLN or PPP v MQM, is something both have to overcome before long. Or else, again, it will cost human lives and struck the most significant national interest.

Hypocrites On The Loose

MQM's Hypocritical Rally Against Talibans

The above picture exposes the hypocrisy of MQM, and the likes of hypocrite political parties who protest only when it serves any good purpose to them. MQM has never put into practice any protestation rally in favor of “Missing Persons”, Dr. Aafia Siddui, or the Drone Attacks. Why? Reasons are, which I learn from the stalwarts of MQM, quite silly. Most of the time they don’t respond coherently, rather beat around the bush. If the MQM, PML-N and others are so very sincere to the nation, respect the dignity of the citizens and oppose the heinous acts such as the ones mentioned above, they should be protesting like they do for other things purely relevant to their party politics.

Interesting is the thing that the supporters of MQM immediately came out of the closet to the roads of Karachi last year to protest against the alleged flogging of the 17 year old girl by Talibans in Swat. The video is now proved fake. But it was and it is the MQM who always need a wee excuse even to bash the Talibans, the extremists. They really don’t miss any opportune moment at anytime in Pakistan. Whereas, these yahoos, the MQM walas and the likes, are the other kind of extremists who work solely for the personal political agenda and personal benefit, not for the awaam’s benefit. They’re the sanctimonious ones who virtually should be ashamed of calling themselves humans, let alone Pakistanis.

These champions of democracy didn’t support one of the clause of LFO — which was brought by veteran president Musharraf — that made the internal party elections indispensable by law. Astonishing thing, isn’t it?

From the other point of view, the obsession of ANP to change the name of province is unshakeable. It shocked me when I heard one ANP spokesman saying: “why so much fuss, just few are killed”, while citing the indiscriminate firing event in Abbottabad that killed nearly 8 protestors who were demonstrating against the name change of NWFP. Is he, the ANP yahoo who uttered such a nonsense, a human, really?

Let’s come to the Mian Sahib, the another champion of democracy and principled politics. What’s his stance on the issue of “Missing Persons”? How powerfully has he demonstrated in favor of Missing Persons like he does at Raiwand at different occasions?

Last, but not the least is the party calls itself the advocate of Bhutto. Jamshed Dasti, the MNA, who was elected from NA-178 Muzaffargarh on the ticket of PPP resigned on 25th March of last month as he was found guilty of holding a fake degree in MA Islamic Studies. But quite startlingly, after few days of sitting at home, Jamshed Dasti is again given with the PPP ticket. Such a shame that a person caught posing MA in Islamic Studies, a fake degree, is still considered eligible to contest elections. Where is the morality? Are the good moral people, better than the Jamshed Dasti, lacking in the PPP, or there never were any?

These are some of the brief instances on the mainstream political parties call themselves the champions of democracy in Pakistan. There are a legion of such hypocrisies to outline, but guess these would do for the moment. Quite deplorably, we hide these facts from our own selves. Why can’t we come out of the party politics shell for sometime and think about the Pakistan as a whole?

Where Leaders Dare

Looming Problems In Pakistan

ANP has gone mad; it was earlier too. Just recently it gave an statement that the party wouldn’t support the repelling of 17th amendment until the province name is changed to Pakhtunkhwa. At several occasions, ANP has been emphatic of changing the name of NWFP province to Pakhtunkhwa-Abaseen or Pakhtunkhwa Khyber. Pakistan’s future is, at this phase, hanging between the egos and stupidity of few politicians. I’m quite afraid to see and question that how and why we need an immediate action to change the name of province, concurrently acknowledging that it practically isn’t going to change the status quo of the country which represents a dismantled, poverty stricken, ill-educated and day-to-day suicide bombings state. Things like repelling 17th amendment, terrorism, drone attacks, power crisis, wheat crisis, pulse crisis, water crisis, global warming, jobs, education, corruption, sovereignty of Pakistan etc. are the grave concern of Pakistanis, but the likes of dunce leaders are in an argle-bargle for the change of province name. I personally have no problem with the changing of name, but the eye-catching problem is the inaction in finding the solution to today’s significant problems, such as the ones above.

How would you conclude to address this problem? For me, I’ve an urge to say that while solving a horde of national problems, first we need to set the priorities — outside the framework of making the higher priorities getting obstructed by some lower ones. It’s a matter of survival, not some point-scoring match. As I read, Cowasjee months back gave a fine example on setting up of the priorities: If your garden needs attention whilst in your house you have a sick child, what is your first priority?

Before finishing it off, let me unfold something unusual from yesterday: Earth Hour, to fight against global warming, was celebrated throughout Pakistan. On the occasion, all lights on all important government buildings and thoroughfares in all major cities were switched off from 08:30 pm to 09:30 pm. It all happened as the President announced celebrating Earth Hour. I’m proud as a peacock to point it that Pakistan is, unofficially and voluntarily, celebrating Earth Hour for decades now, with no electricity for hours each day. We are contributing the best we can against global warming. Shouldn’t we be proud of it? Political leaders are perhaps proud of it, this is why they’re more busy in the name change argle-bargle rather than the production of energy.

United We Rant

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

Today’s headlines as I’m expecting it’d be: President sympathizes for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and pledged to pursue the case in US High Courts. PM slams the decision and promised to talk to US Government. Nawaz Sharif denounced the court decision. Altaf Hussain, on his telephonic address, expresses his strong concern against the court decision on Dr. Aafia. Siddiqui. Pakistani people are infuriated on the court’s decision. United we rant!

I’ve been following the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui quite meticulously since the case was put on hearing in the court on 19th January, 2010. I’ve been seeing the action and reaction of the Ghairat Brigade since the time the newses of ‘Prisoner 650’ was published in Pakistani newspaper and jolted the Ghairat Brigade from its roots. Well, not all were jolted; some a la mode liberals, yes the liberals, didn’t feel like paying heed to the issue as for them it was just about an individual, which is inconspicuous when it comes to the nation of 170 million people already stuck in other problems — the big problems more important than Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, as they say. Some were found justifying her abduction by our beloved dear me dear intelligence agencies and army. A horde of them — who’re the supporter of enlightened moderation introduced by the zilch-venerated former president General Pervez Musharraf — are agilely found justifying such villainous foolish action.

When the prosecution started, it was testified that there were no fingerprints of Dr. Aafia on the M4 rifle, as accused by the government of US that she attempted to murder and FBI official while she was captivated in Afghanistan; there were no M-4 bullets, no bullet debris from the M-4 rifle and no bullet holes from the rifle in the room. She was the one who was shot by FBI officer thrice in the abdomen. And due to the urgent medic availability, she survived. She had 3 kids, all were just too young. Only one is recovered. The rest two are still not recovered from the FBI yet after 7 longs years. God knows where they kept her both kids, God knows if they’re even alive or they’ve killed them. Isn’t it cruel? If you belong to a race of man, it’s my understanding that you’ll be condemning such acts of atrocities and injustice by the US courts.

Even the lawyer of Dr. Aafia put forward ahead of the judge during the closing arguments that believing on the accusations of government and FBI agent would simply mean that you’re also denying the simple laws of science.

This constitutes that a poltergeist removed the fingerprints of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from M4 rifle (which was held by FBI guy as per him), a poltergeist renovated the walls of the room where she was kept, and that poltergeist also removed the debris of the bullet. This is so amazing, no?

This is just not enough. During the hearing, at one occasion Dr. Aafia started to get hyper and wept. Judge Berman removed her from the court room. At another occasion, Judge Berman called a US serviceman to give a testimony. The serviceman started giving the testimony: “Three of my men were killed, along with one Afghan”. The soldier began crying, and judge Berman reached over and handed him a tissue. Where exactly can you smell the discrimination? The trial wasn’t fair as the events went. Judge had sympathies with the US serviceman, but not with the Pakistani national. Do you still receive the situation of injustice willingly or you have an urge to deny it?

Had she been acquitted today, I’m ready to wager that all the leaders of ethnic and national political parties of our country would have been congratulating her, simultaneously asserting that their efforts to retrieve Dr. Aafia have become successful. From the other point of view, we all know that how much our political parties have employed efforts to retrieve her. Every major political party has been busy in power ploys — holding out massive rallies on youm-e-tasees, lawyers movement, playing Sindh card to protect their government; briefly, ranting with a big-league along with awaam — ranting unitedly. But none of the political party ever tried to bring its loyalists on road for a demonstration against the illegal detention and prosecution of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in US courts. She should have been prosecuted in Pakistani court in accordance with the constitution of Pakistan. But who cares. United we rant — at all the events and instances that favors us to bring us to power. I’m sick of all such opportunist political parties.

Pakistani Government should immediately reject the verdict squarely which is given by US kangaroo courts. Pakistani government should immediately demand Dr. Aafia back from US. She’s a Pakistani citizen and should be prosecuted in Pakistani courts — if she’s guilty. We, Pakistanis, don’t accept the verdict by US courts; besides, it’s against our constitution that pledges to provide security to Pakistan citizen.

This is such a disgraceful event for our nation. I’ve void of words to write more on this unjust. Somehow or other, I’ve managed to understand that we’re, at the most, hellishly proud united Pakistanis — united when we all rant at such events but do nothing fundamentally!

The Salient-Hidden Rulers

Institutional Ranking In Pakistan

Only fools are glad when governments change. No, this isn’t my personal sentiment I’m expressing. It’s an old Romanian maxim that really-truly implies that it’s solely not the change of government that matters, but the change of system.

Since the time Iskander Mirza, the first president of Pakistan, imposed the Martial Law and appointed General Ayub Khan a Martial Law administrator, the history of Pakistan has always been at declasse. That was the first time army ever intervened in the politics of Pakistan. Things went by and Ayub Khan abdicated the serving General Yahya Khan. Those were the days when the commencement of ‘establishment’ started to happen. This is the same establishment we talk a lot about in regards with the mainstream politics of Pakistan. Since then, establishment — the army, intelligence and to some extent foreign powers — kept on deciding the fate of Pakistan. The influence of establishment in the politics of Pakistan grew more and more and year after year. And to date there have been 4 Martial Laws in Pakistan, to be precise the figure is 5. Besides, not to forget the role of our intelligence agencies — the imperative and decisive part of establishment — in the political culture of Pakistan.

There are quite a number of reasons and irrational motives why establishment has kept on interfering in the politics of Pakistan for last 5 decades. I had a debate with a friend on it few days back about it and we compared the similar situation in a view of fact that why there has been no martial law in India ever since independence or why establishment isn’t so predominant the way it’s in Pakistan. She gave the strong points and I agreed to that. Adapted to the words of her: Their (Indian) leadership and bureaucracy has always been hellishly strong; they never had impotent leaders like we had and still have. None of the leader and bureaucrat in India ever paved a way for martial law because they, from the beginning, stood strong ahead of the establishment i.e. army and intelligence and the opportunist political parties.

And what we always had for last 5 decades was Ayub Khan, the lodestar. We could have reset our political position and could have made strong the political institutions and ourselves, the awaam, by not endorsing the acts and moves of establishment after the first martial law which was also the first ever interference of army in politics and which was the beginning of the formation of establishment. Now today, establishment has become too strong, and interference in politics of Pakistan has become a requirements for survival of establishment itself that it’d take a long time to revert the things.

This is a fact that in Pakistan, it’s not the premier or president supervising the country nor their parliament is set upped to handle all democratic decisions; God-knows-what democracy we talk about in the contemporary world. If anything, it’s the establishment that decides the future of Pakistan in a major manner. Toppling the governments or using and abetting the political parties for their cause is something not very new coming from establishment. Of late, some top leadership of PML-N has been found covertly meeting with the top brass servicemen in GHQ. This all happened at a time while everyone knows president Zardari isn’t kindly-disposed when it comes to the establishment. Reasons are many to make president Zardari believe why establishment isn’t congenial with him while simultaneously the same establishment seems to be benignant with premier Gilani.

While all this is happening and establishment again is standing under the klieg light, we all must also understand the fact that removing Zardari wouldn’t be a settlement to start with a new era of peace and prosperity as removing Musharraf wasn’t a logical solution neither it gave a reasonable outcome since Zardari is also guided by the examples of Musharraf — nothing has changed so far; and because we know that the next-best in line (most certainly Nawaz Sharif) is another fallen angel as Zardari and Musharraf are. So why so much fuss about Zardari?

I feel like reiterating the Romanian maxim again: Only fools are glad when governments change. Eventually, it should be understood by everyone after the careful examination of this problem that we need to leash the establishment from ever intervening in the political culture of Pakistan. For that, I can only say all the ethnic, regional and national political parties of Pakistan shouldn’t fall prey to the uncalled for interference of establishment in politics. Let these institutions not to impede in the politics of Pakistan because, forsooth, they’re not meant for it. Turmoil only lasts as long as the status quo is unchanged. So we ought to find a way to make sure the status quo changes in our favor — in awaam’s favor, so that we really become the ones deciding the future of Pakistan, not the establishment nor the dictators.