Why democracy still eludes Pak

Across Pakistan’s history a number of politicians, lawyers, journalists and party workers have bravely wrestled with the establishment’s civil, military and economic arms. These arms have played every dirty trick in the book of destructive Machiavellian politics set into motion against democrats so the “establishment” can retain a stagnant and largely reactionary political and economic status-quo; a status-quo that fears the pluralistic and levelling qualities of democracy.

Many from the higher echelons of society have prospered from this status-quo.

Though they are quick to blame the masses for falling so easily for democratic parties’ “empty” promises, the truth is, the same masses have been more susceptible to whatever hate-spewing gibberish these magicians have been feeding the people in the name of history, Islam and patriotism.

This brew, present in the history books our children are taught, has been gradually turning the average Pakistani into a paranoid and pessimistic android who, as if instinctively, lets out his frustrations by pounding the democrats with cynical blows.

No wonder, in this day and age, we are still debating whether democracy is right for Pakistan, and/or is it compatible with Islam. It is not surprising that such debates crop up in a nation constantly injected with a heavy dose of dubious history which begins not 5,000 years ago with the Indus Valley civilisation, but many centuries later with Muhammad Bin Qasim’s conquest of Sindh. In fact, some textbooks have had no qualms of completely bypassing logic by claiming that Qasim was actually the first Pakistani!

This history then cleverly ignores the many terrible intrigues and murders that were committed by a series of Muslim rulers against their own comrades and kin.

We forget West Pakistan’s controversial role and the blood bath that followed in the former East Pakistan. We forget how the founder of Pakistan was treated while on his death bed, as he lay lamenting how some of his closest colleagues couldn’t wait to see him die.

We forget the terrible sounds of the Army’s tanks rolling into Balochistan (1962, 1973); and then in Sindh (1983), slaughtering a number of young Baloch and Sindhis, accusing them of treason, when all they wanted were their democratic rights. We forget the terrible decade-long armed action by the state against “Muhajirs” in Karachi, in which whole families were wiped out.

Also, there are many horrid episodes in which Pakistanis killed Pakistanis and Muslims slaughtered Muslims.

Why is it so difficult then for us to understand that the mayhem rained on us today is by monsters like the home-grown Taliban? “It can’t be us. It can’t be Muslims”, we say.

Back in 1971, very few Pakistanis were willing to advise Yahya Khan to get into a dialogue with rebelling Bengalis. But today, after years of unprecedented violence perpetrated by the Taliban, we have many politicians, TV hosts, and journalists suggesting a dialogue with men who can’t even be described as human. These people’s minds have been influenced by all the concocted and mythical moments of glory, and of justified hatred in the name of religion and patriotism present in our historical discourse.

Unfortunately such demagogic claptrap still manages to pass as being Pakistan and Muslim history in the textbooks and on popular TV.