No Way Out for Pakistan?

The pretender to Anne Patterson’s throne

So far as Pakistan is concerned the WikiLeaks’ disclosure of our rulers’ sell-out to the Americans appears to have been a bubble that burst all too soon. Initially frightened out of their wits, the Americans have dropped any pretence of showing respect towards their factotums who occupy the highest offices of state in Pakistan.

Cameron Munter, the new pretender to the throne vacated by Anne Patterson, has bluntly told the Pakistani puppets installed by the USA that the Americans will interfere in Pakistan’s “financial and governance” matters because, he boasted, the US was Pakistan’s largest aid provider. He said nothing, of course, about the terrible destruction wreaked on Pakistan by the Americans’ insane pursuit of their political objectives through warfare. The so-called “aid” is mere peanuts compared to the human and material losses suffered by Pakistan as a direct result of America’s nefarious activities in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Cattle, Puppets and Puppeteers

You might think that that the reaction to Munter’s humiliating remarks would be an outcry in Pakistan’s National Assembly and strident calls to the nation to unite against the American arrogance. Nothing of the sort happened. Pakistan’s Mafia-like leadership of criminals and fraudsters, whose darkest secrets are known to the American CIA, simply slunk away with bowed heads, their tails between their legs. In fact, the top dog dutifully flew all the way to Washington to attend a memorial service – and deliver a typically sycophantic eulogy – for Richard Holbrook, an oafish American diplomat who used to take particular delight in visiting Pakistan and bluntly giving a piece of his mind to the puppets who presented themselves before him.

The gentlemen and ladies who sit in Pakistan’s National assembly mostly owe their privileged positions to the patronage of the leaders of their respective parties. The MNAs dare not oppose any decision of their leader, however inimical to the interests of Pakistan, for the simple reason that the leader has the power to sack them on the spot. In practical terms, these “leaders” are the effective owners of the political parties they lead. Last summer these “leaders” conspired to give themselves autocratic powers by changing Pakistan’s constitution by means of “the 18^th amendment”. This was a complex amendment which introduced several changes to the constitution, some good, some bad and some totally repulsive. In the last category fall such monstrosities as revoking the clause that requires political parties to hold elections, and allowing convicted criminals to stand in national elections! The way is thus open for revolting individuals such as Z and NS to remain party leaders for life and to pass on the succession to members of their families irrespective of what crimes they may have committed. It is said that the 18^th amendment, which contained over a hundred amendments, was nodded through without discussion, the entire process taking no more than a couple of hours!

The sad fact is that Members of Pakistan’s National assembly are little better than a herd of cattle. They merely go where they are goaded by the puppets who, in turn, have their strings pulled by the puppeteers sitting in Washington. Democracy, Pakistani-style, is merely a form of dictatorship mixed in with unbridled corruption and abuse of power.

Way forward : the path of Iqbal and Jinnah

We need to look at any system of government and make an effort to understand how it operates. Thoughtlessly mouthing slogans such as “democracy” hides the monstrous fact that the Jamhoori Tamasha, the Democratic Circus, we have in Pakistan is one where layers of dictatorship exist, the uppermost layer being the dictatorship exercised from afar by the Americans, who determine the rulers of Pakistan and the policies that they are going to follow. Iqbal:

جلال پادشاہی ہو کے جمھوری تماشہ ہو

جدا ہو دیں سیاست سے تو رہ جاتی ہے چنگیزی

Absolute power of a monarch, or Democratic Circus, both are equally futile;

There will be just tyranny and oppression if Deen is separated from politics.

To Jinnah, “Deen” was a Code of Conduct that we had to follow in life – see Dialogue with a Giant

Pakistan’s Jamhoori Tamasha پاکستان کا جمھوری تماشہ

All Pakistani political parties that pay homage to their Americans masters - refer to WikiLeaks to identify those parties - agree that the current PPP government, up to its neck in unbridled corruption, must be allowed to complete its 5-year term of office because that is the wish of their masters sitting in Washington! At the end of that term Washington will presumably award points for good behaviour, and one of its stooges will be selected to rule Pakistan for the following 5 years.

This Jamhoori Tamasha, the Circus of Democracy, must be brought to an end if Pakistanis are to be released from the grip of corrupt thieves and robbers controlling the reins of power. Toppling the government is straightforward because of the wafer-thin majority it has in Parliament. However, none of the political parties represented in National Assembly will dare to upset the apple cart for fear of offending their masters in Washington. So, we have the macabre political dance being performed by the likes of Nawaz Sharif (the creator of the disreputable 'Friendly Opposition', which guarantees the survival of Z & Co), Altaf Hussain and Fazlur Rehman. What, then, is the solution?

A solution which could spark a constitutional crisis

At this critical juncture in Pakistan’s history, the Supreme Court could play a decisive role. In view of the indiscriminate murders and targeted killings of Pakistan’s citizens that the PPP government is powerless to do anything about, galloping inflation and no-holds-barred corruption of the rich and the powerful, the Supreme Court could declare that the government is unable to fulfil its obligations under the constitution. Apart from the government’s inability to maintain law and order, it seems to be gripped with paralysis when it comes to implementing the Supreme Court judgments relating to the ex-convict who happens to be the president of Pakistan. The Supreme Court could conceivably dismiss the government for sheer incompetence and drag Z, kicking and screaming, before the Court to answer criminal charges against him. This would pave the way for mid-term elections and the formation of a new government.

Should the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, take the bold step outlined here, the one thing that can be forecast with absolute certainty is a flood of damning articles by heavily bribed Pakistani hacks in a section of Pakistan's English language press. Expect endless talk of the judges exceeding their powers and creating constitutional chaos.

Seems to me that a revolution, Tunisia-style, could be another possibility. Are the people of Pakistan ready to explode? The sooner we end the bastardised parliamentary system we have in Pakistan the better it will be for the nation.

نہیں ہے ناامید اقبال اپنی کشت ویراں سے
ذرا نم ہو تو یہ مٹی بُہت زرخیز ہے ساقی

Tailpiece

Religion, as commonly understood, is a mix of ideas and rituals, including unhealthy influences which defy common sense. Invariably, “religion” branches out into a multitude of sects headed by hidebound clerics at war with each other. Al-Quran speaks of Islam as DEEN, which I wrote about in the very first post in my blog. I ask my readers to read it, please, by clicking this link

 http://sakibahmad.blogspot.com/2009/10/islam.html

The religious parties which are so active in Pakistani politics today had, in fact, opposed the creation of Pakistan. More, they had declared both Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam to be “kaafir”/infidel. One particular party stooped so low in its disparagement of Jinnah that it attached the label “Kaafir-e-Azam” to him. These religious parties deserve nothing but contempt from the people of Pakistan for their mischief making.

What we need in Pakistani politics is honesty, justice, and courage to resist tyranny and oppression. That was the DEEN or CODE OF CONDUCT that Iqbal and Jinnah talked about. Without that quality in politics we will end up with immoral political systems such as those we have in the USA and Pakistan. In some ways the USA political system is worse than Pakistan’s, because it denies genuine democracy to nations which are not yet considered “developed” and it allows the American government to launch murderous attacks on them, killing hundreds of thousands of their citizens with its hi-tech weaponry.

The End of Conspiracy Theories

In global terms the single most significant event of 2010 may have been the WikiLeaks disclosure of the USA diplomatic cables. I am not surprised at the merciless hounding of Julian Assange by the USA government. Assange has committed the unpardonable sin of whipping away the fig leaf of “conspiracy theories” with which successive US administrations tried to discredit people who dared to uncover their illegal and criminal actions throughout the world. In the past, when everything was kept strictly under wraps, away from prying eyes, it was easy for the formidable publicity machine of the USA government to laugh away any accusation of USA involvement in monstrous activities as “conspiracy theories”. But not any more.

I like to think that the farce of 9/11 that the American neoconservatives staged nine years ago to provide an excuse for their foreign adventures would not have been possible in today's world where whistleblowers abound and rebels like Julian Assange are there to welcome them with open arms. The devilish tactic of repeating a lie endlessly and using the phenomenal powers possessed by the US government to banish reasoned arguments from the mainstream media which expose that lie, has had its day. I look forward to the day when it will not be necessary to call my blog "Reality and Illusion", a reference to the post-2000 world where reality is buried under a heap of lies thereby creating an illusion of a manufactured pseudo-reality.

What WikiLeaks has revealed no one has denied for the simple reason that the evidence is in the form of diplomatic cables sent by America’s so-called “diplomats” (read: spies and conspirators). The evil scenario that emerges is one of the USA government, and its diplomatic missions abroad, being enmeshed in an intricate worldwide web of intrigue and conspiracy, the full extent of which few had suspected. The core activities of USA diplomatic missions appear to consist of spreading lies and disinformation, deceiving the host nations, bribing and blackmailing local biqwigs, the sordid details of whose lives are well known to the CIA, facilitating ruthless military action by the USA in someone else's name, removing local leaders unacceptabbe to the US government and installing puppets controlled from Washington, etc.

In Iraq we witnessed wanton murder on a massive scale, coupled with the use of torture and sexual humiliation as tools to destroy those who dared to oppose American designs on their country. The policy of treating non-American/ non-European human lives as being in some way sub-human, mere “collateral damage”, whose destruction is necessary in the grand American Design, is being pursued with manic ferocity in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As increasing numbers of innocent Pakistanis die as a result of unmanned “drones” raining death and destruction from the skies - with the Pakistani puppets comprising the president, the prime minister and the army commander in chief nodding their heads in agreement – it seems only a matter of time to me before the American masters and their Pakistani slaves lose their seemingly impregnable positions.

The Pakistani puppets

[Gilani, Kayani, Z, NS]

The foreseeable future

The Hitlerite disregard that the Americans have shown for human lives, and the contempt with which they have trampled democratic principles underfoot in order to install their puppets as rulers in their client states, have generated an upsurge of hatred and disgust for the American governments. A steady decline in the USA’s influence in the world is inevitable, to go hand in hand with its economic decline.

As for Pakistan, I do not see the American puppets surviving very long. Zardari, Gilani and Nawaz Sahrif are goners, while the reputations of people like Kayani, Altaf Hussain, Asfandyar and Fazlur Rehman have taken a direct hit, from which they will find it difficult to recover.

Pakistan needs new leadership, which may take a little time to emerge. Right now, Imran Khan looks to be the one potential leader around, the only one who has the guts to look the Americans straight in the eye and outstare them. His integrity is beyond question and his popularity in the country, especially among the young, seems to be growing exponentially.

He faces two dangers:

* the discredited civilian and military leaders ganging up against him, to spread disinformation and to deny him publicity in the media

* the provincial governments, especially the PML(N) government in Punjab, misusing the province's administrative machinery to prevent Tehreek-e-Insaf Party holding public meetings and to sabotage its efforts to prepare itself for elections in the foreseeable future.

Imran himself is not entirely risk-free. My impression is that he may be influenced to an unhealthy extent by people who subscribe to what Iqbal called "Ajami Islam" [عجمی اسلام ]. However, this is a risk worth taking in view of Imran's qualities as a leader. Let's hope he shares with Iqbal the latter's insight into the charade of madrassahs and khanqahs.

اٹھا میں مدرسہ و خانقاہ سے غمناک

نہ زندگی، نہ محبّت، نہ معرفت، نہ نگاہ

I rose in sorrow from the madrassah and the place where sufis gather

Lifeless, loveless places, devoid of Higher Experience, without insight