Those calling for change can be a peculiar lot. The Bolsheviks would celebrate their October revolution in November and Pakistan’s budding reformists have chosen November to condemn Gen Pervez Musharraf’s (retd) attack on the constitution.

The general’s original affront, the coup that brought him to power in October 1999, is overshadowed by his crime of imposing an emergency in November 2007. This is borne out by the media show put up to mark the second anniversary of the Musharraf emergency, and its comparison with the rather tame offering of Oct 12 that marked the 10th year of the military coup against the Nawaz Sharif government. And if this is not proof enough, corroboration of how the direct victims of the 1999 overthrow hate the 2007 emergency more than the ‘99 coup is provided by the two contrasting responses from the PML-N-controlled provincial assembly in Lahore.

In a session this Tuesday, the Punjab Assembly described Nov 3, 2007 as a ‘black day’ in the history of Pakistan. The resolution said it was the day when ‘the dictator suspended the constitution the second time’ — unwittingly suggesting that a first-timer is allowed to violate the constitution these lawmakers swear by. It could alternately be a case of these MPAs developing selective amnesia which allows them to absolve certain people of certain unconstitutional deeds in the Musharraf period before the issuance of the Provisional Constitution Order of 2007.

Only three weeks earlier the same house had failed to issue a formal declaration to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1999 coup. There was no quorum with only 70-odd members in the house as law minister Rana Sanaullah stood up to move the resolution. The bells rang for 25 minutes and at the next count the number had dwindled to 44. A blank day in history, should we call it?