Do our leaders, swimming in a sea of doubt, know only one thing: to duck reality?

WE all have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and it seems out.

No surprise then that 2005, like its predecessor, will officially be declared the year of ducking — whenever in doubt, duck. This is the government’s mantra.

President Musharraf, one has to concede, gets a more attentive hearing in America than back home when he tries to talk terrorism or promises a primrose garden for his people. To wear or not to wear the army uniform being a recent case in point. Wear what you like, who cares? This is the message from America. But the opposition back home wants him denuded of his stripes.

Such hoopla appears comic given the sad reality on the ground. The nation is going nowhere with the bunch of incompetent politicos, cabinet of courtiers, and the lily-livered fundos failing miserably to collectively shoo away even an iota of poverty encircling their stratosphere.

No, it’s not an easy task, agreed. Yes, poverty is in our face and Musharraf and his party, even the MMA, doubt if they can deface it.

These fustians are past masters at ducking. Remember, when in doubt, duck!

Pakistan got a black eye as the “worst performer in South Asia” for pushing its people into the bottomless pit of poverty and deprivation. Statistics don’t lie as our politicians do. The UN Human Development Index 2004 shined a spotlight on the downward swirl in the standard of living of our people. Education, healthcare, life expectancy, income generation and gender discrimination being the biggest giveaways.

Even the quality of life in Bangladesh is better than in Pakistan, according to the UN report.

With religion coming out of our ears, holiness assaulting anyone daring to defy the fanatical writ, Musharraf and his mandarins are not the God-fearing saviours of society as they pose to be; they are the holy warriors of a status quo that ensures their staying in power and continuity of perks for the next many years, much beyond the 2007 elections.

Never mind if disease, ignorance, illiteracy and injustice straddle this holy land of ours. Never mind if women are still the unproductive half of our population. Or should we still believe in miracles and hope the New Year resolutions parroted from the politico-religious may yet bear fruit? As the ever optimistic, let’s then take a shot and start anew with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as the helmsmen, albeit floundering.

As an ex-New Yorker, a banker who smooth-talked his climb, coupled with the sweat of hard labour with ambition as his spur up the slippery totem pole of success, Aziz now needs to toggle his political base by pushing the right buttons among his party men and bureaucrats to drown their ego and instead earn their keep by doing a day’s honest work.

The prime minister has reportedly asked federal secretaries to forward their progress report. No heads have rolled, nor any knuckles racked, not at least publicly.

Shrewd as he is, Aziz doubts the performance picture to be earth-shaking, so he has ducked the issue all together. When in doubt, duck!

Move on to his information minister. The farzand-i-Pakistan’s most pressing engagement for 2005 is to engage the dim-witted opposition into a debate in favour of Musharraf wearing his army uniform. One would have thought that his penchant for debating days was over, after his nightmarish stay at the Bahawalpur jail during Benazir Bhutto’s rule when he let fly unspeakable obscenities, gender-related (some in real poor taste), on the floor of parliament.

Unless we all suffer from collective amnesia, Sheikh Rashid of the PML Nawaz group got roughed up and later hauled for brandishing a Kalashnikov at a public meeting at Lal Haveli or its environs. BB’s goons gave him third degree behind bars away from the public in the boondocks of Bahawalpur.

Give us all a break, Mr minister.

The world today is topsy-turvy with the tsunami tragedy and even a self-centred society like America is following the latest update on rescue and rehabilitation efforts, giving generously of its resources, thanks to the 24/7 network reportage, and all one can think of is getting pet hacks to mouthpiece your brilliant debating skills on the uniform issue.

Do you ever think of civic journalism, if you know what that means? As information minister, you can lead the way for citizens to get heard in the media.

Civic journalism, as practised in America, clearly extends the reach of journalism, “incorporating new voices of citizens that simply would not have been otherwise heard”.

Sheikh Sahib, instead of hogging newspaper space with inconsequential statements of your cabinet colleagues, you can help empower the community at large by floating the idea that reporters have an obligation to the public — an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes. Journalism can help empower a community or it can help disable it. Not all the media in America is crazy about civic journalism. Certainly not the so-called corporate media or the mainstream media owned and operated by billion-dollar corporations. Still, citizens gather to talk about public policy issues and amplify what they want to say via radio, the Internet and print. Why, for example, has the intelligence unit of the discredited National Accountability Bureau (NAB) gone up in smoke, as reported in the press? Was it getting too hot to handle? Does it really have the dope on former jailbirds, especially ministers and others?

The wing was put in place to gather data about “corrupt practices of those officials and politicians who possess assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.”

If truth be told, you really don’t need an ‘intelligence unit’ to finger point the mansions and the riches visible to the naked eye of the bilking corrupt — all shades and stripes in civilian, uniformed (past and present) and political echelons of avaricious men.

And pray, what did the vigilantes of politico-religious powerhouses do to usher in 2005?

To quote party poopers in a news report, datelined Peshawar, “groups of stick-wielding activists” of the ruling MMA were meant to “roam the streets to thwart any attempt at celebrating the advent of the New Year”.

Threatened the head boy scout: “Our force will be ready camping at two mosques in Peshawar city and the University Town and will act on reports provided by our own intelligence, and I assure you we have plenty of force. Madressahs are full of them.” What an utter waste of human energy and resources! If only these mard-i-momin dispatched their squads of faithful into the innards of the city where poverty stalks, unemployment roams like an alley-cat and illiteracy digs its fangs into impressionable minds, to help soothe the suffering of these unfortunate souls.

Instead, our leaders, swimming in a sea of doubt, only know one thing — to duck reality. When will they grow up?