Countdown (All Over) Again?
An expatriate Pakistani friend of ours rang up from the US recently to enquire whether it was safe to come home on leave to Pakistan as he had it on good authority that there would be trouble come September. Sad and frustrating though it was to hear bad news travelling so fast so far, it was hardly prophetic. Being immunized by the daily casualty figures of the MQM (A) – MQM (H) internecine warfare in Karachi, now further supplemented by the ever increasing Fiqah Jafria – SSP strife as representative of the collapsing social detente all over the country, one wonders what worse one could expect? The announcement by the Leader of the Opposition, Mian Nawaz Sharif, on Aug 14 in Karachi (repeated again in Islamabad on Aug 18) that he was hell-bent on bringing the government down, with the resignation of the Opposition (mainly PML (N) and ANP) Senators and MNAs from the Senate and NA Committees as a first step in demanding that the President and PM resign by Sept 11 or face a mass movement thereafter, one can hardly blame anyone for being pessimistic about the worsening security environment in Pakistan, both internally and externally. With obvious and automatic government reaction, the situation could escalate and the present bloodletting would be a Sunday school picnic in comparison to the bloodbath that is likely to ensue. A stage may well come that even if the Army steps in, they could not stem the slide into anarchy.
Any citizen dispassionately and deeply concerned about the present deteriorating economic, political and social climate, can hardly call the Opposition leader’s threat as fair but then in politics (as in war) nothing seems to be fair in Pakistan, there being extenuating circumstances that give some truth to his stubbornness. Ousted by a combination of guile and selfish interest, driven into a corner very much like had happened to Ms. Benazir, Mian Sahib in his turn in the cold, seems to be resolved that Ms Benazir must be repaid in the same coin. However, unlike Mian Nawaz Sharif, Ms Benazir does not have a hostile but a sympathetic President to contend with and since Gen Babar has “put the Army back in its place and they (the Army) do what the Government tells them to do”, quote and unquote, therefore (at least theoretically) no restless uniformed soldiers to contend with, given that we accept at face value such sweeping rhetoric. Having literally clawed their way back to power, it is highly unlikely that the President and/or the PM would oblige Mian Nawaz Sharif and go the resignation route he was forced to in July 93 in the “supreme interest of the country”. Double standards and separate yardsticks apply, almost in the same manner as one would fail to recognise an elephant just because he (or she) is wearing dark glasses or accept a person rapidly becoming one of the world’s leading billionaires without ostensibly doing any business, at least in the traditional sense of commerce.
