Bullet or ballot?
By Humayun Gauhar July 19, 2008 The perception that Punjab’s “brute majority” has “hijacked” the government will be exploited to the hilt by our rapacious politicians " echoes of 1971 when the “brute majority” of East Pakistan was “unacceptable” to West Pakistan and those who were not applauding silently watched the spectacle of collective national suicide by drowning in one’s own blood. “The people have spoken” has never been part of our “democratic” idiom; “If I win, its democracy, if I don’t, it’s not” has.
Nawaz will pick up from where he left off. Will America be overjoyed? Not if he turns out to be “Ahmedinijad with the Bomb.” But if America is indeed out to Balkanise Pakistan, it “will” be overjoyed " its efforts to foist an alien system on us that finds sanction under the mirage of “democracy” will have borne fruit. After the judges get Musharraf and Zardari for him, Nawaz will trash the restored chief justice, just as he did another before him. He will arrest and thrash journalists, just as he did many earlier. And we will return to the Sharif version of Islam, not too unlike the Taliban’s misinterpretation of Islam.
If, after dissolving the National Assembly or army intervention, they ask for and get ten years from the Supreme Court to put things right, what then? We will become international outcasts. America will condemn it publicly while welcoming it privately to keep us on the hop. Again: what is it that they can do now in 10 years that they were not able to do when they had a better chance from 1999, unless there is a complete change of belief?
Now that we have again chosen this path, we must continue on it until it reaches its logical conclusion. Only when we find a dry well surrounded by bones and vultures at the end of this road will we learn our lesson " that the road was a mirage. Then, perhaps, we might take the road less trodden upon " sirat-al-mustaqeem " the correct path that leads to water. The fear that the strain might break the country is facetious. If there is enough inherent strength in Pakistan " and I believe that there is " we may go through fire and brimstone, which we desperately need to anyway, but we will learn and move on. We could come out of it better and stronger.
If not… God doesn’t make states, people do. People are fallible. Coalitions break. It’s important that these assemblies run their course again no matter how many governments they produce so that our painful learning-growing process proceeds unhindered. Another coalition can be formed within this assembly. If it can’t, or it too breaks after a time, at least this National Assembly will have died its own death and not been killed. Let there be another election. Let any government materialise. Let the devil take the hindmost? Never. The president and the army can always act if the country really is in danger or thousands are dying of hunger. Now is too early. Meanwhile, they should for once make a plan of not how to intervene but what to do the morning after.
E-mail: humayun.gauhar@gmail.com
