One Cop Per Dictator, Please

Or is that “One Cup Per Dictator?” My spell-checker offered me the first alternative, while Google suggested the second. (My spell-checker has not, it seems, heard of coups, though it is familiar with the term “cooze.”). (Go figure.) Personally, i think Pakistan’s street-cred-smart protestors probably mean the latter. Having myself, in younger, goofier days, imbibed (i won’t say “enjoyed” cos i don’t think that’s possible) the nectar neck-tie noose that is the kuppi of 190-proof surgical spirit (sold in plastic bottles which should come with a menacing skull and crossbone-motif warning) i can tell you that more than one cup can seriously fuck with your mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Even if you are a kun-toot-ta dictator.

Amidst all the hoopla, and the euphoria generated by fervent sloganeering, i ask myself, “whither grass roots activism?” (No, i’m NOT trying to incite the youth of Pakistan into getting stonked and swaying disco-deevana style to a rock-steady dhol beat.) The only grass roots protestations in the country have been coming from Laskhar-e-Vahab legions. Roundly pilloried by “rational” elements of society, they are, nevertheless more in tune with the sentiments of the majority of Pakistanis (who still, believe it or not, live outside Karachi and Lahore). That these sentiments are the result of an environment which shrouds in darkness the minds of the people, an atmosphere which needs to be (forcibly?) changed, is true. i do subscribe to that view, though not about forcibly doing so. The last thing we need is an even heavier backlash from misguided fundamentalism.

On the other hand, the wave of libertarianism wafting (though hardly sweeping) across the campuses of educational institutions across the country bodes well for the future of ideologically motivated popular uprisings of the non-denominational kind. Hopefully, the expression of discontentment by the youth of more affluent segments of society will filter its way up [sic] the social ladder, as more people realise that the results of such protests cannot be measured in the short-term.

The fact of the matter is that the situation in Pakistan is waaaay too complex to be summarised in a few pithy bullet points which can then be passed off as a political manifesto. One of the problems with the continuous de-railing of the democratic process is that our political leaders end up banding together in acronymically chantable alliances which bring together that motley crew in a hypocritical show of solidarity. Instead of electioneering on the basis of a particular ideology, what they then fight for is the (ho hum) restoration of demockery. Which means, in a nutshell, to the winner go the spoils.

The older i get, the more i feel that what we need in Pakistan, more than anything (apart from universal access to education), is to produce thinkers who can develop socio-political philosophies relevant to us and not U.S.

We have no model of our own, just the rotting carcass of Anglo-Saxon imperial tradition – which seemed to serve us well in our nation’s infancy, but really locked us, at the outset, into the Romano-Hellenic tradition (in and of itself, not such a bad thing). Myself belonging to Macaulay’s “class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect,” it is still difficult for me not to fall back on my post-colonial upbringing. The conditioned response is to benchmark everything to “what do people in the wilayat do, hein-ji?” East is Beast, but Vest is Best, no?

Following in the footsteps of imperial tradition is the framework curretly underpinning Western civilisation; the rational, socially-aware, politically-correct philosophy based on the principles of reason. Having taken hold in an organic process spanning centuries of ideological development, this framework is fine for a civilisation which has been able to overhaul its traditions on a regular basis and has shed for the most part its instinctive reliance on divine guidance.

Not so fine when roundly forced into the square peg of our own Indo-Islamic identity.

Currently the ideological lines are drawn between followers of the Western-rational approach and those who subscribe to the atavistic phantasmagorical vision of Islam as a hacker-off of heads, shoulders, knees and toes, brewed in rusty cauldrons during darker ages. One set of frustrated youth – drunk on this unholy brew quaffed out of dust-encrusted jeroboams brought up from the dingy cellars of quasi-religious halfway houses – dance unholy jigs on the grave of benevolent Islam, which respected the whole of humanity as a heteregenous group with many common goals and (would you believe) subscribed to the philosophy of agreeing to disagree.

Another (smaller) set of frustrated youth take to the streets waving banners transcribed in a semi-foreign tongue. Whom do these banners address with their eloquence? Oppresed masses? Perpetrators of said oppression? An “international” media which will spread the word to pious upholders of democratic principles who may righteously intervene on our behalf?

Ah, but it seems to be working. That renowned champion of democracy the world over, Mr Jhon Negroponte, is currently visiting Pakistan (perhaps prompted by the banners flashed on CNN et al) to rap General Musharraf on the knuckles and insist that he stop being a naughty boy and start behaving in more democratic fashion. i have been holding my breath since i heard this heart-warming piece of news. My (overly cynical) doctor tells me that i’m in danger of turning permanently blue in the face.

The majority of Pakistanis are practising (in the commonly accepted sense of the the term) Muslims. Any viable political solution to our myriad problems must take into account this fact (however hard it is for Western-oriented liberals to stomach). That is not to say that the desirable solution should be based on Shariah-compliancy. Just that the aspirations, as well as the collective state of mind of this majority need to be addressed, along with the interests of those who are non-Muslim, either by birth or inclination.