The bliss of certainty

To date, I have resisted the urge to weigh in on the ongoing fractal farce, the political tragicomedy that Pakistan has seen fit to stage to a sold out house with no end in sight.

Why, when such a treat is obviously to opinionated columnists what a fatdeer with a game leg is to a pack of starving wolves? Simple: I had, and have, and probably will continue until the final whistle sounds to have no idea of what precisely I am looking at, of what form will finally emerge from the violently shifting, swirling phantasmagoria.

But everyone else does. They are certain. They are certain that Imran Khan is an infallible saviour, that Nawaz Sharif would dance the hemp fandango before August was out. They are certain that Imran Khan is a madman and Taliban sympathiser, his every utterance dangerous nonsense, his rabid supporters mindlessly charging the fragile edifice of democracy. They are certain there will be a coup, a soft coup, a coup over-easy or a coup medium rare with blood dripping from the plate.

They are certain the election was stolen, and that the results were inevitable. They are certain the intervention of the army is the worst thing that could happen to this country – and the best. That Musharraf is a traitor – and that he is a wronged hero returned to an ungrateful but beloved nation.

How envious I sit, here in the darkness of doubt and ignorance, of the certainty of my peers. What is it like to never once think “I wonder if I’m wrong about everything?”

I won’t pretend to know the mysterious trajectory of this crisis, revolution or script, whether in its flames we will forge the beginnings of a New Pakistan or merely find the ashes of the old. But I do know what will tear us apart is not doubt, but certainty.

Civil war hysteria aside, these events have ruptured an already small and fractious, ah, ‘intelligentsia’. Those who alone in this country have the luxury of critical thought and debate have turned instead to vitriol, sloganeering and sneering derision.

Brother turned against brother, lifetime friends feuding over leaders they will never know and systems that exist only in shared imaginations. In a world where everyone disagrees and everyone is certain, there is no room for debate, only enmity.  Life is neither a morning cartoon nor evening drama. The writing is sloppy, episodes disconnected, loose ends flapping in the wind. The characters are unsatisfying, their motives unclear, their acts inconsistent. They refuse to slot firmly into hero or villain for our viewing convenience.  If you cannot find a single positive in those you oppose, nor one flaw in those you support, then though you have an absolute right to your opinion it is worthless. Here, I’ll start:

Imran Khan prioritises health, education and clean governance and his mobilisation of the urban middle and upper middle class for electoral reform is remarkable and commendable. But his stubbornness over the meaningless month long resignation of one man while his party remains in power is mind boggling.

Nawaz Sharif was the people’s choice (even accounting for rigging), stood up to the capital E and oversaw small but significant infrastructural and economic upticks. But his leadership in this crisis alone has teetered like a drunken unicyclist between blood-boilingly arrogant and gob-smackingly inept.

If you see black and white here, I guarantee it is a shade of grey and a trick of the mind’s eye. Not every cost can be borne in defence of the idea of democracy, not every accusation against your political hero is a conspiracy.

Let’s not pretend this is a straightforward issue. Let’ pretend we are not faced with the choice of living sick and broken on a cliff hoping time will heal our wounds, or jumping into an abyss where we imagine we hear voices in the unknowable darkness. Don’t pretend that all is not at stake, and don’t pretend you don’t know why people are so weary that they are ready to roll any dice the Devil gives them.  Cast away principles and parties for a moment. It’s only people. It’s only ever people.

People on one side shivering with a deep and nameless dread that the Pakistan they have grown up in, butt of a thousand jokes, corrupt, poor, bruised and battered, derided and decried, always a step away from Failed State, Rogue State or Split State, isolated in its misery will be the same Pakistan in which they are buried; flabbergasted at their countrymen and countrywomen who stand against them, sneering at the hope for a Naya Pakistan.

And people on the other side who are terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought that once again, once again the tiny little inches won with sweat and tears in the name of democracy and institutional progress are going to be swept aside in a few emotional weeks, trampled under boot. Amazed that their fellow Pakistanis could be so foolish as to throw away even those small victories on a vessel of empty promises. Fear, as Franklin Roosevelt never said but should have, makes people daft.

Complexity and nuance fade till we can see only light or darkness. Terrified, we scream our devotion and our hatred, to silence that treasonous little voice of doubt in our minds. We cast out those who disagree with us, from our thoughts, from our lives, and seek refuge in the echo chamber from our own abject horror.

Unity, not uniformity. Faith, not dogma. Discipline, not rigidity. A nation of disagreements, spoken aloud, is a vibrant and wonderful place. A nation that agrees on nothing but their contempt for each other is no nation at all. The marketplace of ideas closes if we spit on the wares of others without even inspecting them.

I will support anyone, of any party or brigade, who powers the grids, feeds the poor and punishes the guilty, who creates wealth and redistributes it, who educates and empowers. And because no such paragon exists, I will support the gamble that most appeals to me. Who that is will vary from person to person, but if you have never felt any doubt in your decision, you have surely elevated loyalty to principle or party over people.

We don’t have to like or even respect each other’s opinions. But we must at the least hear them. If we are so fractured, so irreconcilably divided that we are repulsed at the thought of entertaining an opposing view as if it will infect our minds like a virus, if we have become tiny fascist clusters who live only for the joy of our echo chambers then what does it matter who wins? What does it matter if we are ruled by a man in a sherwani or a uniform?

What does any of it matter? The writer is a freelance contributor.  Email: zaairhussain@gmail.com