THERE are normally responses to the columns we write, we regular columnists, but they vary in number and in objective. Well over a dozen came in relating to my column last week, in which I referred to the government hospitality kindly extended to me by that great democrat and leader of the 1970s, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who has the proud distinction of not only having manipulated the loss of half the country, of having disenfranchised and converted into a minority the Ahmadi community, but of bestowing upon himself the title of chief martial law administrator, the first civilian in living history to so do.
Anyhow, to this day I cannot fathom out with any certainty why he chose to send me to Karachi Central Prison. Obviously, I know that what had annoyed him was something I had said. Though, on the other hand, Bhutto did take great pleasure in humiliating for little rhyme or reason his friends, his close friends who had done him favours, and of course in insulting his ministers in public, or even having them beaten up and tortured as in the case of J. A. Rahim, his most senior serving minister.
Most of the e-mailers asked if I can now remember why. My response had to be no. But one old friend, who at the time was working for Bhutto, wrote to tell me that he was with ZAB on the day he put me in. ZAB, laughing like a schoolboy who had played a prank on a classmate — shoving him into a swimming pool — said to him, “Uss salay Ardeshir ko pakkar lia” (or words to that effect). Apparently, ZAB was greatly amused, as, records my friend, were the Roman emperors whilst watching their lions devour the Christains.
The best message came from reader Waseem Khan, under the subject ‘Kuch tareef bhi karo, bhai’. “That was very funny,” he wrote, “Have just finished reading a biography of Sigmund Freud. After being harassed by the Gestapo heavies and just before leaving his beloved Vienna [Hitler marched into Austria in 1938, the Anschluss took place and the Jews became persona non grata], he was brought a document on which his signature was demanded. It stated that he had been properly treated. He signed, and added in his own hand a few words : ‘I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone’.”
We have advanced, we have moved on from the days of state inspired violence. Or have we? The MQM has now been legitimized and empowered as never before. But we have progressed from the days of Bhutto, when he had people murdered (for which he himself paid the ultimate price), maimed, locked up, abducted, beaten; from the days of Ziaul Haque when he entertained the awam with public whippings and lashings, and even with a public hanging.
Benazir, despite all her faults and despite her genes, rarely indulged in the politics of personal vengeance. She did make the mistake of having leader of the opposition Nawaz Sharif’s old and ailing father picked up, manhandled and locked up on some petty excuse. And of course there were many of her party jialas-goons who took it upon themselves to rough up those who did not toe their line, senior government officers included.
Nawaz in power was intolerant of those who criticized him, such as editor/journalist Najam Sethi, whose house he had invaded in the middle of the night, and whose wife was roughed up, while Sethi was collected and thrown into a lockup. He did the same with journalist Husain Haqqani — had him picked him up in the dark from his car and whisked away to a remote ‘safe house’ for a period of quiet contemplation.
During the governments of Chief Executive and then President General Pervez Musharraf this country has witnessed more than its share of violence and killings — mostly of the sectarian type, but (hopefully) not state instigated. The Shia community has suffered uncountable deaths at the hands of the majority sect, and two days ago it was the turn of the Ahmadi community, when, early on Friday morning, at a place of worship, eight men were gunned down and a score of others wounded — entirely their fault, they were Ahmadis.
The world is now small : at 02.54 ET that same day a report was filed by AP in the New York Times, and of course it was picked up immediately by foreign television news channels. Yet more publicity for Pakistan.
To the best of our knowledge, the general himself has not been involved in petty incidents of personal revenge. This does not hold true of those he has placed in positions of power and responsibility. He has under him a man who holds the federal portfolio of law coupled with human rights who stalks the country behaving like a lager-lout, beating up those who do not please him, and allows his son to do the same.
Why does the president, who is the ultimate in government, tolerate this? He has in his Punjab government MPAs who beat up government servants, and the ruling province has produced senior bureaucrats who have physically attacked each other. The general turns a blind eye to the sins of his subordinates. Is he allowing them rope enough to hang themselves? If so, how long is it?
The purposes of his coalition partner in power are also dubious. The past reputation of the MQM does not exactly glitter. Now that the party has been granted much additional powers, the people fearfully wonder how it will be used.
Pakistan is closely allied to the world powers in what is known as the war against terrorism. It has done its share on the borders of Afghanistan picking off and picking up Taliban remnants, albeit with the help of our American allies. What Pakistan seems unable to do, and this under a government controlled by the military and governed by a general, is to fight terrorism on its own ground. It is helpless, it seems (or is there some very dirty game afoot?), against the intolerant and murderous members of the religious right, of the militant groups that operate with impunity, whether they be officially banned or not.
Our politicians and men of finance boast about the remarkable recovery on the economic front made since 9/11, thanks to their brilliance, though it is purely thanks to circumstance and providence. They huff and puff about investments flooding the country whilst knowing fully well that unemployment and inflation are on the increase, and even expound their pipe dreams about this country being a tourist’s paradise.
The point is: which investor can be serious about putting his money into a country where bombs and bullets explode and fly with regularity, where intolerance takes the place of moderation, where enlightenment is shrouded in darkness, and over which hovers clouds loaded with violence? Which tourist would risk his life wandering about the parts of the country in which he is officially allowed to wander, large tracts being out of bounds to him, and in the bargain be deprived of the many enjoyments of life which he can find in his own homeland or in many other far friendlier countries?
The worst news that we read, each and every day, as we have done for over half a century, is that our leaders maintain that there can be no peace, no trade even, with India until that old rotting ‘core issue’ is settled, the K-issue that they insist on pretending is foremost in the core of the hearts of the majority of the people of this nation. They are wrong.