Twilight of the OLD order...

[fatman17]

Twilight of the old order
Ayaz Amir

Friday, December 12, 2014
Islamabad diary

Dar’s announcing the government’s readiness for unconditional talks with the PTI is not the dawning of wisdom. If only it had been that. It is the government being left with no other choice, wisdom driven into its head first by the huge rally in Islamabad on November 30 and then the closure of Faisalabad on December 8. Had these not happened rest assured there would have been no offer of talks. Laaton ke bhoot…

The iron rod – sarya – has melted, because Imran Khan and the PTI have proved tougher and more tenacious than at least I could have imagined. For what my opinion is worth, I have to say this that for years I did not take Imran seriously as a politician. How many times must I not have told foreign journalists out to make sense of Imran that for all his other qualities he lacked that fire in the belly which alone confers mass appeal?

That was then when he was a virtual lone ranger, traipsing from one place to another without attracting too great a following, his celebrity status just that and not turning into instant political coinage. But he kept at it. I have said it before, permit me to say it again. A lesser man would have given up long ago, cursing his countrymen as an ungrateful lot into the bargain. Even after the 2013 elections when the PTI emerged as the second – or was it the third? – largest party, its gains were not much compared to the laurels won by the PML-N. And when Imran talked of the elections being stolen, and of reopening the account of four constituencies, who took him seriously?

And from outside my hotel window I saw the beginning of the Aug 14 ‘long march’ from Lahore and wasn’t too impressed. It was a rather bedraggled army setting out uncertainly for a quest it wasn’t too sure of. Then the container speeches, and the liberati and professional spoons (chamchas) of the ruling party, and armchair pundits – preening themselves on knowing the national mood better than anyone else – opening up with their jibes and sarcasm.

They made fun of the Reverend and they made fun of Imran Khan and gave the nation long lectures on democracy, at the same time hoarsely alleging that both Qadri and Imran had been launched by ‘secret hands’. Since when did our ‘secret hands’ become so clever?

Unbeknownst to the armchair warriors, the national mood was completely different. The crowds weren’t buying into the cynicism being ladled out by the experts. Through his daily speeches Qadri gave the nation a lesson in constitutionalism – in what the constitution really stood for. His workers – and let this never be forgotten – put the fear of God into that enlightened institution known as the Punjab Police. This was an important psychological breakthrough because with the Punjab Police demoralised – most notably on account of the Model Town massacre – the ruling setup felt vulnerable and defenceless, and therefore unsure of itself. The melting of the iron rod had begun.

The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar -- who has now made himself virtually invisible – experimented with the use of force on Constitution Avenue on the evening of August 30, with the use of brutal force against the protesters but to no avail. Hundreds were injured but the protesters, especially those of the Reverend’s party, held their ground. It was the police which had to retreat.

Out of necessity not choice the government had to come to its senses. That was the last occasion when force on such a scale was used in an effort to quell the growing agitation. In Faisalabad the PML-N tried roughneck tactics to stop the PTI but, as we have seen, this backfired. It is the PML-N which is licking its wounds.

What Imran gave the crowds and the nightly national TV audience he addressed was courage. The PTI was a ‘burger’ and ‘mummy-daddy’ party. If today the PTI worker is fearless it is because of the example set by his leader. Say what you will about him – and there is no checking the cynicism of the ‘liberati’ – he is tireless and has proved audacious, giving calls for rallies without preparation but the crowds justifying his confidence in himself by responding in unprecedented numbers.

I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to pull off the closure of Faisalabad, convinced he had overreached himself. But lo and behold the city responded to his call and the PML-N is still trying to figure out what hit it.

If for nothing else Imran Khan’s agitation would be worth the effort because of the huge participation of women and young girls in his rallies. When did such a thing happen in Pakistan before? Women sitting right in the heart of these jalsas with no fear of being touched or molested. In the context of Pakistani society this is a bigger revolution than any other.

Spare a thought for the ironies of history. Zardari had to become PPP godfather and president of the republic before the PPP could come to destroy itself as thoroughly in Punjab as it has managed to do. What Gen Zia and successive heads of the ISI could not achieve Zardari has done.

The Sharifs had to come to power for the third time before the essential hollowness of what they stood for could be completely exposed. Imran Khan stands out the more when compared to the constant money-making and incompetence of the knights he is up against.

Musharraf’s coup saved the Sharifs in Oct 99 by making political martyrs of them. Champions of democracy…that’s what Musharraf turned them into. We have to thank our stars the army stayed its hand in August this year because had it moved – as so many, including myself, thought it would – they would have become political martyrs again…their shortcomings, to put it no stronger than this, forgotten.

Certain breaches are irreparable. After Musharraf’s eclipse the demise of the Q League was a foregone conclusion, indeed an historical necessity. After Zardari’s ride in the chariot of Roman glory the PPP’s elimination in Punjab was unstoppable. Today nothing can arrest the decline of the N League because it represents a past, a period in our history, which is gone. The Sharifs were a counterweight to the PPP. That was their historical relevance, the reason they were nurtured by ‘secret hands’ and promoted to political prominence. They are no answer to Pakistan’s present problems.

One has to look the part. Can even their fervent admirers – let’s say the members of the professional spoon brigade – swear in all honesty that they look the part of the nation’s deliverers? Pakistan can’t live for another three or four years on the basis of laptop distribution or the construction of more unwanted metro-bus services. That’s as far as their imagination runs. They can be elected to power for a fourth time but still their minds will not go beyond more laptops and more flyovers.

Pakistan has moved on. These are no longer the 1990s. In 1990 the ISI could distribute banknotes stuffed in suitcases to a long line of N League candidates. Would you catch it doing such a crude thing today? Pakistan needs a change of guard on the quarterdeck. It needs a new style of leadership. In the PTI jalsas you can see something new, something different: the fervour and even ecstasy of the crowds, the music and the swaying to it, the participation of different classes – the well-heeled and fashionable and the not-so-well-heeled – and above all the participation of women.

In the PML-N you have my friends Abid Sher Ali, Rana Sanaullah, Pervaiz Rasheed. Or Dar and Nisar and Saad Rafiq and Khawaja Asif….look upon them and tremble. Are they anyone’s idea of the future?

The PML-N’s best bet is to stop playing tricks with itself and others and go seriously for a judicial commission to look into election irregularities. And it better be quick at it or the storm which has already gathered will sweep all before it. Fresh elections are what the country needs. Let’s hope we get them somehow.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com

 

[Kompromat]

Only thing permanent in the world is change.

 

[Bilal.]

No one realized that the quite change spread of media, urbanisation(probably at 40% plus now) and spread of education has brought about in Pakistan. This is not the same country as it was in the 90's indeed.

 

[Jzaib]

very well written article

@Norwegian you should read it brother.

 

[Kompromat]

No one realized that the quite change spread of media, urbanisation(probably at 40% plus now) and spread of education has brought about in Pakistan. This is not the same country as it was in the 90's indeed.

With a little thanks to Musharraf i suppose?

 

[Bilal.]

With a little thanks to Musharraf i suppose?

The guy will have the last laugh... In a way at least

 

[fatman17]

it may not happen in my lifetime, but i think the future is getting better for the young people of Pakistan. God Bless you all.....

 

[truthseeker2010]

it may not happen in my lifetime, but i think the future is getting better for the young people of Pakistan. God Bless you all.....

why not? why can't the mid-term elections take place?

 

[Winchester]

Change is going to come but not very optimistic in the short-term
The real concern is what happens after Imran???

 

[Saifkhan12]

Good article and a big no to below.

"In the PML-N you have my friends Abid Sher Ali, Rana Sanaullah, Pervaiz Rasheed. Or Dar and Nisar and Saad Rafiq and Khawaja Asif….look upon them and tremble. Are they anyone’s idea of the future?".

 

[M.AsfandYar]

With a little thanks to Musharraf i suppose?

I think Musharaff was really telling the truth about his early years as president in yesterdays TAKRAR with IK.

 

[fatman17]

Writing on the wall…which some still can’t read

Ayaz AmirTuesday, December 16, 2014
Islamabad diary

This movement is not to be stopped or wished away. I am not expressing a desire, merely pointing to a reality getting stronger by the day. If it had no staying power this movement would have finished at the end of August, boredom and ennui taking over. Dispiritedness would have set in.

After all, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) – its workers more charged and organised in the beginning as compared to the workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – has abandoned the field, for reasons best known to the Reverend Allama. As winter sets in, and a new dynamic takes hold over the national landscape, only the memory of that struggle remains, in which PAT activists played such a significant role.

There was nothing to prevent the PTI from suffering a similar fate. It too could have succumbed to physical fatigue and weariness of spirit. But it has gone from strength to strength, in the heat of this movement becoming a stronger and more organised party…its workers, activists and sympathisers gaining in confidence and morale.

And they have proved their mettle. Closing down major cities is easier said than done. But they managed to shut down Faisalabad, long considered a PML-N stronghold, a redoubt of the Sharifs. The call to shut down Karachi could so easily have failed and gone wrong. And there would have been egg on Imran Khan’s face and PTI sympathisers would not have known where to hide. But they pulled off that feat too.

Now as I write these lines early in the morning in the comfort of the Gymkhana – having got on a plane from Karachi last evening where I had gone to see the PTI’s shutdown and also to attend the Rumi Festival at the Beach Luxury (with whose old world charm, and faded glory, anyone of spirit will fall in love) – the battle for the soul of Lahore (if this be not a poetic exaggeration) has already begun.

From early TV reports it is clear that PTI activists are spread across the city, blocking major intersections. The metro-bus service has been suspended. And it is still only eight in the morning. It promises to be a long day although this much is clear that the PTI, like it or not, is on the march – the initiative with it – while the PML-N is reduced to verbal grandstanding and histrionics.

We shouldn’t lose sight of the larger picture. Mass politics had died in Pakistan…the era of street agitation, of mass movements, over. Politics had come down to a see-saw battle between two tired and largely discredited political forces – the PML-N and PPP, both devoid of fresh ideas and living on past slogans. Yet the grip of these parties on the political scene was so complete that it left space for no alternatives. This led to a sense of alienation – the young, the educated, the middle classes, young professionals, the unemployed, the disenchanted and disillusioned, losing interest in politics because it had no meaning for them.

In all of Pakistan’s history no one has had a longer apprenticeship than Imran Khan, toiling away for 15 years – 1996-2011 – in the political wilderness, a sporting celebrity becoming wandering political prophet beating a hollow drum, honoured for his other accomplishments but ignored for his politics.

From the founding of the PPP in 1967 Bhutto was prime minister in four years. From being picked up by Gen Jilani as Punjab finance minister in 1981, Nawaz Sharif was Punjab chief minister in 1985, then again chief minister in 1988 and then prime minister in 1990. Thus political stardust both Bhutto and the Sharifs touched early. Imran, by contrast, has travelled a long and lonely road. Only now, after a pilgrimage of almost 18 years, has he found his mark, his words finally falling on ready ears.

For something strange has happened. The ground has shifted from under the feet of the old politics – the PPP dead and buried in Punjab where once it reigned supreme, and the Sharifs, out of step with the times, being seen as representatives of a past whose heyday has long been over.

There is no calumny greater than the smug charge that only the well-heeled are responding to Imran’s call. The movement he has sparked and is leading has drawn all sections of the people – from the well-heeled to the deprived and down-and-out – into its fold, which alone accounts for both its sustaining power and its mass appeal.

Small wonder the PTI has inaugurated a new era in national politics. It has ended the alienation of the politically disengaged, that vast section of the population which found no connection with politics and was consequently on a rudderless sea, its frustration with prevailing conditions finding its only outlet in the national pastime of cynicism.

By galvanising the young, the middle classes, the disenfranchised and the female half of the Pakistani population Imran and the PTI have brought about this change. Commitment, and passionate commitment at that, has taken the place of the earlier nihilism, something which can be seen in the PTI’s jalsas and rallies, DJ Butt’s music not creating but expressing this mood.

All this may come to nothing but that is for the future to decide. Just as Bhutto spoke for his times, Imran is speaking, and articulating the discontent of the present times. And because what he is saying, and how he is saying it, is not airy-fairy stuff but expressive of the feelings of ordinary people – what they feel in their hearts and souls – they are responding to him.

It is no joke closing down Faisalabad and Lahore. You can’t do it by verbal ballistics alone. You need street power for it and the PTI has amply demonstrated, time and again, that where once it lacked this essential ingredient now it has plenty of it. Look at the way Imran just gives a call for a rally or a shutdown and his cadres and activists get to work without need for further motivation or instruction. This is political power, which once Bhutto had in West Pakistan and the Awami League and Sheikh Mujib in East Pakistan. The Sharifs have only the Punjab Police and this is a force which stands demoralised.

How does anyone make the Sharifs understand all this? As agents of Gen Zia’s reactionary rule, they not only swam with the tide but profited the most from it. Their rise to political and financial prominence is rooted in the political necessities of that dispensation. How are they to realise that the tide has turned? The ongoing movement which we are witnessing is just giving expression to long-muted, long-silenced, frustration and despair. But the frustration and despair were there, interwoven into Pakistan’s social and political fabric.

And much of these feelings arose from the politics represented by the Sharifs and the incomparable Zardari, two sides of the same coin. Vast acquisition of wealth by both the Sharifs and the PPP leadership softened by palliatives or lollipops – in the form of laptops and yellow taxis – to keep the masses distracted. The Roman Caesars held games and distributed free bread to keep the populace amused. The Sharifs distribute laptops and construct showy projects to sell themselves politically.

For those who think this state of affairs can last indefinitely there is much to learn. The old order is breaking down. This is increasingly evident although it is our privilege to recognise or ignore this reality.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com