Influx at both happy and sad occasions is at its highest across the country these days. Despite the rise in mercury, rows in funerals are longer than ever and attendance at weddings equally huge. Masses feel special, the elites more human. Ours can arguably be an ideal society if we could carry on like this forever. Pays would rise, rates would plunge, amnesties would be given and those with responsibilities on their shoulders would mingle with those they are responsible for. Phones would be picked up on the first ring, patients would be taken to hospitals in their own cars.
If only we could carry this competitive environment on forever - proving oneself to be more people-friendly than the other - we would be living in heaven. But we are not in heaven and all this hullabaloo will fizzle out by July 25 when the last person has cast his or her vote. Promises made to be fulfilled within days will take years and the people who came out on their land cruisers to help out those without food and shelter will return to Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and, of course, Quetta. Business will resume as usual as it does after every election or a change of government.
One thing that will never go back to normal though - especially after these elections - is the moral fabric of our society. We already have a history of not being a very accepting when it comes to politics since the inception of Pakistan. We even lost half of Pakistan to this political intolerance. However, this time it is different. From old to young, urban to suburban, employed to jobless, rich to middleclass, everyone has a television, radio, personal computer, telephone and fax machines all combined in one device, in their pockets and on those devices we are being offered nothing more than gross propaganda, demi gods as saviours, sectarian recipes for sale, monotonous ethnic marketing and fake news galore.
Add to this are the latest institutional encroachments, no regard for the same parliament that, at the moment, is being portrayed as the epitome of what could be. It doesn’t take a rocket science to deduce that we are headed towards a disaster. We will emerge from these elections as a more polarised, more intolerant and an even more shattered nation. Dangerous precedents have been set in the past five years from which a layman like me has learnt only one thing: if you have enough people to block a few roads in a few cities, you can dictate your terms to almost anyone in Pakistan. You can influence the crafting of internal and external policies, you can manipulate the media and you can subdue the working of state institutes. Give those people on the roads a stick each and you become the one true king to rule them all.
Watching this poison being forced down our throats, one can’t help but wonder, where did we go so wrong?
Answering that why would require a multifaceted approach towards understanding our last seven decades but we are not here to do that. We stand at a point in time where we have to do the exact opposite of what we have done in the past and undo what we have so shamelessly done to this country. Ironically, the answer to all our woes lies within the same system. If we have to go forward from here onwards, we, as a nation, have to embrace democratic norms in whole and not in small portions. We have to kick off lethargy and stand up to anything and anyone that tries to become an impediment in the way of democracy, and that doesn’t just include standing up to dictators. It also includes bringing down power to the people.
Political parties that claim to be the biggest proponents of democracy have to trust their own workers and be answerable to them to begin with. The grassroots must be considered deserving of a chance to choose who is and who isn’t worthy to lead them. The parliament’s sovereignty would need to be respected by other institutions. Bureaucracy, judiciary, military and politicians all have to be made subject to equal standards of transparency and accountability.
As for the question of who exactly would do it, there is a simple answer. During the times when the government is at its weakest - when the caretaker setups are in place, we do not sleep thinking there would be no government at all the next morning. The whole country is busy politicking yet no abuses are being hurled at the caretaker PM or his cabinet because we all know they are not here to stay and will soon be replaced by the ones chosen by us, the people. In the same way, we need to understand that even those that come to power after elections will only be here for five years. Let them run the country. Of course if they do not deliver, we shall be standing by the same ballot boxes again, only more educated and prepared. But for governments to deliver we need to give them space to breathe, empower them and provide a conducive environment to plan, prepare and execute. If, despite of that, they disappoint us, we can bring them down once and for all but only in the next elections.
No shortcuts please!
The writer is a political activist and can be contacted on Twitter via @Salarzai_
If only we could carry this competitive environment on forever - proving oneself to be more people-friendly than the other - we would be living in heaven. But we are not in heaven and all this hullabaloo will fizzle out by July 25 when the last person has cast his or her vote. Promises made to be fulfilled within days will take years and the people who came out on their land cruisers to help out those without food and shelter will return to Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and, of course, Quetta. Business will resume as usual as it does after every election or a change of government.
One thing that will never go back to normal though - especially after these elections - is the moral fabric of our society. We already have a history of not being a very accepting when it comes to politics since the inception of Pakistan. We even lost half of Pakistan to this political intolerance. However, this time it is different. From old to young, urban to suburban, employed to jobless, rich to middleclass, everyone has a television, radio, personal computer, telephone and fax machines all combined in one device, in their pockets and on those devices we are being offered nothing more than gross propaganda, demi gods as saviours, sectarian recipes for sale, monotonous ethnic marketing and fake news galore.
Add to this are the latest institutional encroachments, no regard for the same parliament that, at the moment, is being portrayed as the epitome of what could be. It doesn’t take a rocket science to deduce that we are headed towards a disaster. We will emerge from these elections as a more polarised, more intolerant and an even more shattered nation. Dangerous precedents have been set in the past five years from which a layman like me has learnt only one thing: if you have enough people to block a few roads in a few cities, you can dictate your terms to almost anyone in Pakistan. You can influence the crafting of internal and external policies, you can manipulate the media and you can subdue the working of state institutes. Give those people on the roads a stick each and you become the one true king to rule them all.
Watching this poison being forced down our throats, one can’t help but wonder, where did we go so wrong?
Answering that why would require a multifaceted approach towards understanding our last seven decades but we are not here to do that. We stand at a point in time where we have to do the exact opposite of what we have done in the past and undo what we have so shamelessly done to this country. Ironically, the answer to all our woes lies within the same system. If we have to go forward from here onwards, we, as a nation, have to embrace democratic norms in whole and not in small portions. We have to kick off lethargy and stand up to anything and anyone that tries to become an impediment in the way of democracy, and that doesn’t just include standing up to dictators. It also includes bringing down power to the people.
Political parties that claim to be the biggest proponents of democracy have to trust their own workers and be answerable to them to begin with. The grassroots must be considered deserving of a chance to choose who is and who isn’t worthy to lead them. The parliament’s sovereignty would need to be respected by other institutions. Bureaucracy, judiciary, military and politicians all have to be made subject to equal standards of transparency and accountability.
As for the question of who exactly would do it, there is a simple answer. During the times when the government is at its weakest - when the caretaker setups are in place, we do not sleep thinking there would be no government at all the next morning. The whole country is busy politicking yet no abuses are being hurled at the caretaker PM or his cabinet because we all know they are not here to stay and will soon be replaced by the ones chosen by us, the people. In the same way, we need to understand that even those that come to power after elections will only be here for five years. Let them run the country. Of course if they do not deliver, we shall be standing by the same ballot boxes again, only more educated and prepared. But for governments to deliver we need to give them space to breathe, empower them and provide a conducive environment to plan, prepare and execute. If, despite of that, they disappoint us, we can bring them down once and for all but only in the next elections.
No shortcuts please!
The writer is a political activist and can be contacted on Twitter via @Salarzai_