No white heat revolutions

Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson – twice elected – famously observed in 1964 that a week was a long time in politics. True to those words, the twist came last week when religious scholar Dr Tahirul Qadri, otherwise respected for his balanced theological views, suddenly redefined his normal pursuit of salvation in the hereafter to alignment with secular hope for salvation in this world. His demand for some fundamental electoral reforms within days from now was as uncompromising as the sermon of a particular mosque’s prayer leader.

As the story goes, the imam was giving a sermon to his audience to mend their ways and prepare for the hereafter. He warned that for entry into heaven on the Day of Judgement, they will have to cross a bridge as narrow as a sword’s blade with huge flames of fire leaping from underneath. Hearing this, a villager got up to go when the imam asked him where to? The villager shot back: “You aren’t making it any easier to cross that bridge, are you?”

Dr Qadri and Imran Khan have both used the words ‘change’ and ‘revolution’ rather too loosely. These are curious words and one is confused whether they are being used in the usual political context meaning replacing one set of inept and corrupt rulers with another equally so if not more, or whether these words are meant to evoke the need for a transformative and social change. Surely, assigning roles to military and judiciary or doing away with the offices of a lowly patwari and SHO, as suggested by them, can hardly bring about that wholesome change which their followers are pining for.

Neither were the people particularly inspired with that other event last week to observe the fifth death anniversary of late Benazir Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh. The keynote speakers on the occasion plainly forgot the universal maxim that one can fool some people all the time and all the people for sometime but never all the people all the time.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s haranguing the judiciary was totally misguided since all he had to do was ask his talented father to whisper the names of his mother’s murderers in his ears – something he has claimed on more than one occasion to know about. The post-speech father and son show was more for his better than expected delivery of choreographed content rather than spelling out his party’s vision for Pakistan – much hyped about before the event. Clearly, Zardari, the helmsman, has no idea where he is steering the stricken ship of the state as an increasing number of Pakistanis look helplessly at the receding shoreline in the far distance.

The clamour for change would seem logical as the country is experiencing unprecedented inflation, insurgency, and a highly corrupt and dysfunctional state machinery. There have been consistent five years of below three percent economic growth and yet Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf tells the nation that these were five years of golden rule. One can only suspect he was speaking for himself, given the numerous rental power scandals. It is a pity that the ruling party is so short on seasoned presidential and prime ministerial timber that it has to manage with mere twigs – burnt out or green, it doesn’t really matter.

The global financial order is getting exceedingly complex where the failure of any one component can bring down the whole system. It is true that this fragility has forced some Eurozone countries, like Greece and Italy, to opt for technocrat governments and temporarily put democracy on the backburner. The technocrats in power are, as everyone knows, better suited for implementing tough reforms to get out of the economic morass than coalition democratic governments weighed down by compulsions of survival. But democracy in such countries has deep enough roots to resurface without much ado as is happening right now in Italy. Pakistan’s experience with democracy is too recent to contemplate what we may not be able to handle.

Stemming the economic slide and bringing about some semblance of recovery should indeed be our top priority but the subject hardly figures anywhere in national governance and any serious discourse on this is missing. But the answer to our predicaments lies not in losing patience with our present path or yearning for an awami revolution with seeds of anarchy, but going for immediate elections and a determined push for major reforms.

Some people might have reservations about the 1973 constitution and want a role for the military and judiciary in governance of the state. This is plainly dangerous. Those who remember the turmoil of the early 1970s will vouch that howsoever imperfect the constitution may be, the consensus on it was arrived at with great difficulty. Open the Pandora’s Box in a nearly ungovernable Pakistan today, and I dare say, we shall be in the woods for a long time.

Those keen on revolutions would also do well to read the 19th century analysis of the French Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville, not the least because it produced the guillotine for corrupt French aristocracy, but because in 1789 the French made the greatest ever effort by human race to sever their history in two parts and tear open a gulf between their past and their present. Yet they failed in some ways to achieve that objective as they unconsciously retained most of the sentiments, habits, and ideas that the old regime had taught them. Over time, the revolutionary slogan ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ lost its shine.

The debate about the best form of government in various countries of the world is not new and has been there since the times of Aristotle and Plato but empirical studies about governments benefitting their citizens have only recently been conducted in the west

Faith in democratic institutions may also be falling dramatically in several countries including Hungary and Argentine, which for many years seemed to be moving stridently towards democracy. This could serve as an alarm bell of sorts, but there is also an ‘Arab spring’ in the bloom where people are trying to get a voice for themselves. So it is not all lost.

It is widely suspected that there is collusion between the two mainstream political parties and they want to take turns at ruling Pakistan at the expense of the people’s well-being or the country’s prosperity. Their unenviable reputation in corruption and near dominance in domestic politics has strengthened that perception. Additionally, there is a huge gap between the supply side of good governance and its demand by the people.

The general feeling in the country is that the next set of politicians will be no better than those in charge at present and the country cannot survive economically for another five years if it continues to be mismanaged in the present manner. This is spreading despondency and encouraging support for more disruptive measures which some cynics call exercising the ‘nuclear option’ in politics, with preference lately shifting for a ‘higher yield’ Dr Qadri. But nuclear options have always destroyed whatever existed and have never been a solution to people’s problems.

In democracy, exerting pressure on the government of the day to bring it closer to popular expectations is fair game. A better way to break the chains of bondage from unscrupulous politicians may be to force major reforms through actions ‘within the box’ rather than whipping up people’s emotions. Nuclear options are weapons of mass destruction and white heat revolutions, we might remember, have rarely been beneficial for society or soft on its sponsors.

The writer is a retired vice admiral. Email: tajkhattk@ymail.com