Islamabad diary : Friday, December 12, 2014
Twilight of the old order
Ayaz Amir
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, aimlessly moving 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 ATQ 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(PAT), 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 (Chamcha) 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: [email protected]
Twilight of the old order – by Ayaz Amir
Posted by admin in Commentary on December 14th, 2014
Islamabad diary : Friday, December 12, 2014
Twilight of the old order
Ayaz Amir
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, aimlessly moving 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 ATQ 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(PAT), 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 (Chamcha) 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: [email protected]
Dharna, Imran Khan, Long March. PTI, Sarya
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