Farrukh Khan Pitafi’s Official Website

It is my misfortune to have a cursed relationship with some of Pakistan’s best minds. I owe them a lot for having learnt quite a few things from their work and examples like sound arguments, use of language, reasoning, propaganda and love for liberty. Yet it is strange that whenever I take a principled position based on my conscience, I find it totally antithetical to theirs. Is it because I am naïve or they are opportunist? Perhaps both, but the fact remains that if you talk of causation, you cannot rubbish the consequences that your decisions bring to the fore. Every act has a consequence and that is exactly what ensures the march of history.Of late, these friends have taken to gambling. For more than a decade they braved quite zonking risks. When some of them really paid you momentary yet well-marketed dividends, how can you defy the losses incurred by a slack hand? It is natural to take great risks when you live in interesting times with an interesting history but how can you blame others for your predicament when you lose? For instance, even if they did doubt our intelligence we will do no such thing to undermine theirs just because they joined Musharraf in his desperate attempts to survive. It was a neat gamble.

Certainly at a time it so seemed that Musharraf and his coterie will just manage to prevail. And are big empires (of business or others) not built through such huge gambles? It was just another ambitious game played quite similar to the decision of joining Farooq Leghari and his Accountability Bureau in order to persecute the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership. It is fair to pursue what Adams Smith once called enlightened self-interest or some rather obscure ones know it as benighted selfishness. My only problem is that those who lose should face their defeat with dignity not with sheer contempt for those who have prevailed.

Just for the sake of understanding, no reasonable man wants Musharraf’s head on a platter. In fact, most of us have been asking him to prepare his exit strategy because we believe that he has suffered owing to the intrigues of his opportunist allies and who still continue to drag him to even riskier positions. Our problem then is that instead of wasting his time in futile games he should invest his energies in seeking a safe future. And that safe future is not in politics. The sooner it is understood the better.

Now these friends are reminding us that once Musharraf is gone the entire system will implode and the country will become far more sombre and an internationally isolated place. But may I inquire why such doom and gloom scenarios? When these Platos go to India they never doubt for a jiffy that a coalition comprising a variety of parties with divergent often antithetical worldviews can complete its term in office. Yet when democracy finally seems possible in Pakistan we are told that one day when Musharraf is not there the PPP will quarrel with the PML-N and the ANP. Well, I am not a seer or a prophet and hence, cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. However, I know one thing for sure.

The reason why the component political parties of the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA) have joined hands is not merely to rid the country of Musharraf’s presence, even though it might be part of the short term agenda. They sit together today because they have learnt the virtues of unity, tolerance and democracy the hard way. It was during Musharraf’s rule that Nawaz Sharif and his family were not only exiled from the country but also not even allowed to participate in his father’s funeral. It was during the very rule that the PPP lost Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. And of course it was under this regime that the NWFP had to endure such lethal destruction. Do you now understand why an apparently hung parliament elected a Prime Minister with an unprecedented majority?

It is also fallacious to claim that after Musharraf’s departure there will be no clear agenda for the ruling coalition and the government will soon diminish in stature. Not quite sir. Those who claim that the sole purpose of the current political alliance is to oust the ex-general forget quite a lot of things. I wish our ‘experts’ and ‘oracles’ should have spared at least enough time to go through the manifestoes of the winning parties. Had they done so, they should have realised that Musharraf’s exit is being demanded not because it was the sole purpose of their struggle but because his presence is the biggest stumbling block in the pursuit of the common minimum agenda.

And if you are still not convinced please have a look at the new cabinet that is taking over. If you remember the bankrupt faces in the previous cabinet, you will heave a sigh of relief to see the new. Compare the past foreign minister with the new. Compare the past information minister with the new. The fears of country’s isolation should not persist given the fact that the best diplomatic minds like Tariq Fatemi and Husain Haqqani are advising the victors. And as for the war on terror, kindly tell me have you seen Asfandyar Wali’s interview on television? We finally have a mother of all parliaments in place and the government certainly will be the mother of all democratic governments.

If you are still not convinced, kindly look at the army. We today have an army chief who is determined to put an end to the army’s involvement in civilian matters. Then we have a thriving independent media. And to top it all, once the judicial package is adopted through the parliament, a very proactive judiciary too will retain the power of oversight. Now tell me where do you see any chances of disruption? It cannot be denied that there will be a little bit of tweaking of the system and slight changes in the political geography once Musharraf goes. That is quite natural, for the country will then have a new president. But that is that. No more fuss and a new era of democracy will be ushered in. Please stop behaving like Puddle Glum of Narnia and have some faith in democracy. Also our ‘intellectual’ friends, who unnecessarily chose to become part of the mushy gamble, should stop embarrassing us any further and give us another opportunity to respect them for their sheer intellect. They will not be disappointed to see the results if they finally trust our judgement.

Courtesy The Post

Posted on March 30th, 2008 under General, Important, Main •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback