DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 13 September, 1998
Absolute!
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
"ABSOLUTE: In quality or degree - perfect. Free from all imperfection or deficiency; complete, finished, consummate. Of degree : complete, entire, in the fullest sense."
Such is the degree of the moral bankruptcy of those who sit in our parliament. The latest manifestation, the prime minister's two-day trip to London at our expense, in the prime-ministerial special jet which supposedly had been returned to serve the nation.
His reason for the sudden flight: to express his concern about the health of the ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Zaid. If this be so, why carry with him Begum Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif, Miss Asma Nawaz, friends F. Mehmood and Rahila Isa, Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz and wife, military secretary Brigadier Javed Iqbal, personal physician Brigadier Masood Siddiq, protocol chief Farooq Ubaid, an unnamed assistant, chief of security Pervez Rathore, press secretary Rao Riaz Hussain, personal secretary Qamruzzaman, valet Shakil, three un-named guards, four staff members, and two pressmen?
The real reason, some say, is that he went to see Altaf Hussain as he badly needs numbers to push through his 15th Amendment (that is, if he is as serious about it as he leads us to believe), Altaf having announced that he will no longer talk to the likes of Chaudhry Nisar, Saifur Rahman, Chaudhry Shujaat, who cannot deliver what they promise. Others say, his visit involved a private family matter, which is no longer private as he used state apparatus. For either of these reasons, or the declared excuse, he had no need to carry with him an entourage of twenty-four ( "Tussi ve sadey naal challo").
It is the duty of the leader of the opposition to criticize such wasteful expense, and it is comical when the leader raves about it after she herself, as prime minister, behaved in a far more extravagant manner, her free trips being more numerous.
Benazir Bhutto insists on embarrassing us, oblivious of the disdain and the sniggers aroused here and abroad by her protestations of innocence. Recently, when the Bow Street magistrate in London was asked by her lawyer to grant an injunction preventing disclosure to the government of Pakistan of her holdings in Britain, he questioned: "Would the learned counsel tell us what his client has to hide? If there is nothing to hide, the learned counsel's client should welcome complete disclosure by Her Majesty's Government to the government of Pakistan regarding her finances," and declined her request.
Nawaz Sharif and his government are steadily taking us deeper into the mire. First came the 'bum' (as it is affectionately known), long after our expert had told us that he has the capability to nuke 27 Indian cities at one go, time and time again, and reduce them to ashes. Using this as an excuse, the government saved itself by declaring an unnecessary 'Emergency', telling lies, spending our dollars, and depriving us of our fundamental rights. On top of it all, someone among our rulers and their cronies surreptitiously sent out of the country 200 million dollars between the time the government enforced the freeze and the bank opening time the next morning. The government has in its possession a full tally of who sent out what and through which bank. The governor of the State Bank even declared that the money whisked away will be ordered to be brought back, and the remitters and the banks concerned penalized. This has not been done and the people now justifiably hold that the guilty were insiders.
Nawaz Sharif then floated the Kalabagh Dam scare and the stupid opposition, rather than saying 'go build it if you can without having the money you need to build it,' flared up, ranted and raved senselessly.
Then came the cruise missiles. Again the government lied to us. We were told that it had not acquiesced. Did it not realize that by thus stating it had admitted that it was unprepared, that it had no intelligence forewarning? The Americans, knowing our stupidity and fearing that someone may press the wrong button, informed the government what was happening while the missiles were flying over the country.
This event was closely followed by the announcement of the tabling in the Assembly of the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment Bill. This upped the hype, exacerbated the sectarian strife already eating into us because of all the discriminatory laws that exist. To gain support, Nawaz Sharif summoned and addressed a gathering of learned divines, asked them to go out into the streets and spread the message, and told them that the forces of the government would back them in their crusade. Does Nawaz Sharif not realize that to incite a civil war of sorts is a grave offence?
Having undermined the judiciary as he has, what hope have the thousand or so of our people in jail on the charge of having intoned 'Bismillah-ur-Rahman-ur-Rahim' or of having had the phrase engraved on a tombstone, who are unable to even get bail? What hope have the uncounted others, such as Akhter Hameed Khan and many good men, who under the blasphemy laws are summoned on frivolous charges to appear before lower courts in various remote areas of the country?Mushahidsaab tells us each day that the Kashmir issue is being kept alive, that it is festering, rather than being put on the backburner. Do people not know that all we are doing by sending in 'freedom fighters' is killing more and more men, women and children of the same faith? Our men are sent out to various international forums to ask for help to settle the Kashmir issue. Out of sheer courtesy, the host countries agree to give their support. This news is disseminated as if it is a great breakthrough. We will make no headway on the Kashmir front until we are strong. As things are, it is unlikely that this will be the case in even the distant future.
As for the difficult terrain of the playing fields of the Great Game, what has this country gained from the Pakistan and US inspired and supported guerilla war against the Soviets? Nothing for the country, but much for the pockets of the few top men involved. Who are the Taliban? Where were they born and nurtured? Who now finances them? Why and for what and to whose gain? Are we not raising a rebel rabble force to meddle in the internal affairs of another country? When the crunch comes, as it soon may, this 'tiger', when forced back into the weakest bordering territory of Afghanistan which is the country that spawned them, may well chew us all up and swallow us.
Coming home to Karachi, we read every day of killings related to political enmity. Life has ceased to have value. This province has an incompetent chief minister in Liaquat Jatoi who is incapable of holding a government together. Granted, he is forced to deal with a nasty greedy coalition, but that was always on the cards. Nawaz Sharif made a 'high-powered' peace-keeping committee of sorts, chaired by Jatoi, which amongst others included a couple of federal Chaudhrys, the landlubber Master Mariner, the chief secretary of Sindh, the home secretary of Sindh, the IG Police of Sindh and the commander of the Rangers. A diverse committee, its members working in diverse places and thus with an inherent difficulty in assembling all together at any given time.
Very sensibly, this committee formed a sub-committee of men on the spot who matter, chief secretary Zubair Kidwai, home secretary Wajid Rana, IG Police Aftab Nabi, Rangers chief Major General Imtiaz Shameem. A strange combination of luck and sympathy willed the providence to ensure that each of these four are competent, efficient and able men, capable, if left free to work together, of bringing about a semblance of peace and tranquillity to this troubled city. This was not in the interests of power-seekers and money-makers, so the chief minister ordered that the sub-committee cannot meet unless it is he who presides over and directs the meeting. Thus, it now stands suspended with the chief minister hell-bent on ridding himself of the chief secretary and the IGP. Jatoi is trying to bring in pliant Salik Nazir Ahmad as his CS. Why?
In the frying pan right now is the CTBT, the latest point of contention. Despite noises to the contrary, it will be signed, as will the ABC, the XYZ and anything else the US asks us to sign. There will be further devaluation every couple of days, and one fine morning we will find that the rupee has been officially devalued. No new fish, big or small, will be brought into the tax net and those of us in it will be taxed to the hilt. We are courting recession, unemployment and perhaps even famine.
Absolute disaster? But which man in Islamabad realizes that moral bankruptcy can only breed every other possible sort of bankruptcy?