Politicians’ lost sympathies

By

Sattar Rind

Politicians in Pakistan fail to serve their nation, neglecting to enhance the democratic norms, values and culture of the country. Politicians have changed the meaning of the word ‘politics’ to something that has now soured for all rational beings of society who wanted it to be deep rooted in their country. Such a desire however is relatively naive in this day and age, hardly anybody in society arguing to defend the words ‘democracy’ and ‘politician’.

Many who hoped that democracy would flourish, profoundly believed that this ideal would succeed. Their argument now however is that the Army are more powerful, not allowing democracy to be protected in Pakistan.

It is known by everybody that the Army never loosened its control of power and had not at any time willingly handed the country over to politicians to rule freely; the Army Establishment never releasing power to the demoralised politicians. They even on one occasion attempted to create a false reason to overthrow the democratic government. No democratic government had ever been authorised to run freely. Still, it had never happened with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) either.

He came into power with the support of the Army, dismissing a number of generals who didn’t support him. This may perhaps have been as he did not want to appear a weak Prime Minister. He even used to refer to General Zia as ‘My Monkey General’.

But the same ‘Monkey General’ went on to sentence ZAB to death by hanging; this against the rules and regulations of constitution. At this time even the most intelligent of politicians failed to determine that the Army had not lost their desire to rule. The ‘Monkey General’ ruled this country for 11 and a half years.

Zia’s death later came from an air crash, politicians once again having the chance to rule, but this time the Army was equipped with greater experience and refused to lose control even for a single day.

Ex-Spy Chief General Hamid Gul declared former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto a security risk for the country and used to tape her telephone conversations. At the height of this surveillance, the situation developed to such a level that as soon as Bhutto was putting the telephone receiver down, she immediately received another call from the Ex-Spy Chief stating that he was also on the line.

They did not therefore allow Benazir Bhutto to complete both tenures of her government, this being the same kind of ‘seek and find’ game they had played with their own ‘created’ politician Nawaz Sharif, who had also failed to completed his tenures.

Excluding this, did politicians have anything good in their tenures? Nothing but corruption and it depressingly became the cause of their termination.

After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto the new leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) crossed all limits of corruption and bad governance.

As a result of the 2013 election Nawaz Sharif came into power for the third time to rule the country, but he idolised his successor government and started the family oriented culture of rule and bad governance. Such an act paved the way for a soft coup for the Army, though not directly taking power into their hands. They just began responsibly and took over powers of law and order of the Sindh government.

Besides, the Army had also kept under its own control the powers of external and internal affairs and the accountability of central government. The politicians were unable to respond to this as they lacked the moral grounds to protest having lost the public’s support all over the country.

Now however people are not for what ever reason verbally demanding but instead greatly wishing that the Army should be rid of the so-called democratic rule. This way if we may for a moment go back to 1991 after the fall of USSR, the USA state official Francis Fukuyama annexing that ‘history had died’; arguing that it was a war of thought between Hegelianism and Marxism, Hegelianism though having won such a war over Marxism.

If we assume this the same way and apply it to Pakistan’s Army and politician’s conflict in history, we could easily claim that the politicians had already lost the war of controlling the public, before the Army did.

Bad governance and the worst seen corruption are the obvious reasons for politicians’ failure. One could not say that the Army had ever removed itself from corruption or that their ruling tenure was an ideal one, but they were less corrupt and their level of corruption hardly affected any individual as such. It had however affected society at a much greater level.

But individuals always find a feeling of security in a less corrupt society and for the time being that seems more than enough in a cynical society. In every democratic government though, they observed it to some extent, if one was to generalise on the Pakistani ruling culture following General Zia.

Thus favour silently turns towards Army rule, people at this time appearing to wait for its coming. Every politician played a very negative role, the Army having only recorded and propagated its dirty greediness in society through different means. Nevertheless it’s a fact that throughout this the Army remained very much the ‘sacred cow’, nothing being said against them.

We could continue the argument in which it is being claimed the Army did not allow politicians to rule or bring anything good to society, but such an argument is worthless because which politician was given orders by any General to be involved in corruption?

Therefore it seems logical that the public is tired and wants reassurance for a publicly elected government to return to their country, wishing also for a general who may satisfy the public that they are going to put back on track their once de-tracked nation.

Sattar Rind

Sattar Rind lives in Sindh, Pakistan. and is an Author with four books to his credit. three poetry and one on politics. As a Columnist he has written for a number of newspapers and magazines since 1991. Sattar can be contacted at the following email address: [email protected]