The PM’s eloquence: why this amazement? Directionless, unfocused, and too long: this criticism of the PM’s speech is misplaced. What was anyone expecting? What could have been different? You can’t put an old horse through new tricks. And in the political arena today there is no older veteran than the PM, entering politics, tutored by his military godfathers, when most of the twitter generation wasn’t even born. So far from being at fault, he was only being true to himself. It is we who have to adjust our glasses, so that we can see things more clearly and not hike up expectations to unrealistic levels. The PML-N has always had a strong publicity side to it. Its trumpeters and buglers will extol the leadership quality on display. But that’s their job and they will do it well. We must cut through the haze, and the band-playing, and see things for what they are. Just to put things in perspective, the Balochistan Liberation Army (if such an entity really exists) is a response in Balochistan to the concerns of today; the Taliban – the new, post 9/11 Taliban – represent a contemporary reality; Imran Khan the politician, much as one may disagree with his politics, is a new phenomenon (he may come to nothing but that is beside the point). Altaf Hussain is old; his moment is passing. He may become the Bal Thackeray of Karachi but that freshness and spirit which marked the first rise of the MQM is a thing of the past. The Zardari-dominated PPP has crossed its sell-by date. Like a festering disease it can linger on but the Bhutto elan, the attraction of the early mythology, is gone. Into this basket of old, antiquated things we must also put Nawaz Sharif, because regardless of his being in power, nothing can change the fact that he is the product of another era, a throwback to different times. He was the darling of the military establishment, the favourite pupil of successive ISI chiefs, when the overriding aim of the military establishment was not only to block the PPP’s path to power but to destroy it. Military-backed political glory went hand-in-hand with phenomenal business success, state-owned banks extending the favours of the concubine favoured industrialists. The military establishment may have bungled Afghanistan. It may not have liberated Kashmir. But it did a fantastic job in repainting the Punjab political landscape… so propping up and strengthening a counterweight to the PPP that the entire political complexion of Pakistan’s largest province, the powerhouse of its politics, underwent a change. The conservative Punjab of today, ready to spring to the defence of any reactionary cause, swept by feelings of ecstasy when glorifying the likes of Mumtaz Qadri, land of great enterprise and vigour but also now home to various extremisms, is the fruit of that endeavour. And the political star to emerge from that maelstrom was Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N. I am not saying Punjab was some kind of a Bolshevik utopia before. Far from it. Only this that its ingrained conservatism was dyed a deeper colour because of a strategic partnership between generals, judges and the new business class. But that era is long gone, its battles over, its passions subsided. The PPP is dead, at least in Punjab. Not only is this not Zia’s Pakistan (although in many of its reactionary trimmings it still is). It is also not the Pakistan of the 1990s when Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif (the latter backed by the ISI) were battling it out. This is a different Pakistan, overwhelmed by different problems. And the speech just delivered by Nawaz Sharif was so instructive in that it showed in all its muted drama a figure from the past struggling with the idiom of today, and not quite succeeding. We know that just before the May election, and immediately after it, there was a whole crowd of publicists drumming the theme that Nawaz Sharif and company were about to perform miracles. So loud was this drum-beating, and so imposing some of the lead drummers, that all scepticism was suppressed (although crushed seems a better word). Only now are doubts beginning to rise once more, this speech the instant instrument of this awakening (which perhaps means that there is a silver lining to everything). But, again, it is not Nawaz Sharif’s fault. The battles he was trained for were different. Today the battles are two: fixing a policy towards the Taliban; and taking radical steps to shake up the economy. Does Nawaz Sharif have it in him to deliver on these counts? On the first count, can he become the Pakistani Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka who took the fight against the Tamil Tigers to the finish? We may yet see hidden reserves of resolve and stamina coming to the fore, taking all of us by surprise, but the signs don’t look promising. The government is unable to speak with a clear voice. Beating about the bush, hemming and hawing… Expect no labours of Hercules with such an approach. One thing is certain. The fight against the Taliban can no longer be isolated to the Frontier. The cancer is now spread all over. So taking up this fight, if anyone is serious about it, means risking unrest in Punjab, the Sharif’s power base. Are they ready for this? If they are not, forget about the army taking them seriously. And without the army’s total involvement, its wholehearted commitment, let’s forget about the Sri Lanka experience being repeated here. Getting the economy right means something more than crony capitalism, the economic doctrine so visible these days. Zardari gave a new meaning to cronyism, and the uninitiated thought that nothing could be added to it. Now we have a more sophisticated variant, with the country’s most powerful capitalists not only close to the government but not averse to flaunting their close ties. Privatisation is again one of the emerging buzzwords, the shambles of public sector enterprises – railways, PIA, steel mill – paving the way for privatisation. Question is, whether Pakistan is heading for Thatcher-style privatisation which led to public (or middle class) ownership of state enterprises, or Yeltsin-style privatisation in which a new class of capitalist-predators seized control of large state enterprises at knock-down prices? Every time dons of the cement mafia, and other mafias besides, are seen consorting with key figures in government, Yeltsin and the breakup of the Soviet Union come to mind. Pakistan is not the Soviet Union but on a diminished scale the same processes seem hard at work. The capitalist nature of the present ruling firmament does nothing to still these doubts. Power and big money in an incestuous relationship: one thing should be reasonably clear, in no Third World country has economic regeneration been brought about by capitalist rulers. But, cynics may ask: if the present setup is so inadequate to the tasks at hand, how come it is back in power? Good question and the answer lies in the names of two persons: (1) Gen Pervez Musharraf whose coup came to the aid of an exhausted party (the PML-N running out of steam by 1999) and burnishing its democratic credentials; and (2) Asif Ali Zardari whose five-year performance obliterated the memory of the PML-N’s past and made it appear like a gift from the heavens. Tailpiece: Look at Bradley Manning, diminutive and gay (yes, he’s gay), and looking so vulnerable. Has suffered enormously already and after his sentencing is set to suffer much more. But he leaked all those documents because he thought it right; and he was appalled by atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere committed by his country. If anywhere there is a hero for our times it’s him.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 03:11:26 +0000
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