A moment lost

In the new mood of optimism that followed the restoration of the judges, many had hoped the momentum built up would be carried forward; that a new, brighter chapter would be opened up for the country and its people.

There had been forecasts that President Asif Ali Zardari, in his second address to parliament since assuming charge at the presidency , would announce a repeal of the 17th constitutional amendment or take other measures that would re-cast him in a more favourable light. In one recent interview at least, Mr Zardari has been quoted as saying he was not a ‘bad guy’. Many thought he would now try to prove his ‘good guy’ status by doing more to carry forward the spirit of reconciliation and indeed propel himself into a leading role within it.

Instead, the president, behind his wide smile, chose to offer very little. His concession in Punjab, where governor’s rule has gone and Shahbaz Sharif returned to office, was the only bright spot in the much-awaited speech. The talk of setting up a committee to review Article 58 (2) (b) sounds, after all, rather hackneyed; we have heard the same rhetoric before. It usually comes when leaders wish to stall things and avoid any decision on them. The whole matter has in fact been, metaphorically speaking, thrust into a dusty cupboard that is only infrequently cleaned out.

The president then seems to have made it clear that he does not quite go along with the general mood of happy co-existence. Those who know him believe he may in fact be waiting for his moment to strike back against the prime minister, who emerged as a hero in the last act of the real-life political drama that continues to unfold in the country. There are those who believe that by siding with the ‘establishment’, the prime minister is seen by the president as having betrayed him. All this is of course rather ominous. It does not bode well for the future. Ministers who made their moral stand by stepping down are also among those seen by the presidency as ‘traitors’.

More infighting within the ruling party, more attempts to amass power and use it for self-aggrandizement and more ugly politics on the lines of what we have seen recently in Punjab will take us nowhere at all. In fact there must also be some question as to whether political tinkering, an attempt to knock in nails to hold up a structure that has rotted to its very core, will serve any purpose at all. The structure must be re-built or at least massively renovated. What we need is dramatic, radical, sweeping change – that can galvanize people and bring back hope in places where none exists. We need to find means to push through changes that can make a real difference to the lives of people. In this lies the possible answer both to the terrorism that has become our greatest scourge and to the despondency and despair that spurs it on everywhere, turning young men like Ajmal Kasab into killers driven on by hatred.

In this context, the indications from Washington of plans to step up drone attacks on tribal areas in Pakistan are disturbing; there is talk, we hear, in Washington of ‘carpet bombing’ tracts of territory. Islamabad needs to make its US ally realize this will be disastrous. The mass US-led NATO troop presence in Afghanistan has after all solved nothing at all. Seven years on, there is every possibility that Afghanistan could once more fall into Taliban hands. And, for reasons that are not difficult to understand, this complicates the situation in Pakistan as far as combating militancy goes, with agencies clearly thinking too of the future.

It is this overall scenario that Pakistan’s leaders need to take stock of. We have reached a situation where bombings, killings and attacks on mosques no longer shake us. Only the most audacious acts of terrorism now generate emotion. Rather than continuing their acts of petty quibbling, the president, the prime minister and indeed the leaders of other parties must accept that there is a vast challenge before them. To make even an attempt to solve it, they must take people along with them and move forward as happened during the long march.

There is, for now, no evidence that this is happening. In Islamabad, there is instead a growing feeling of animosity, a sense that Zardari and his henchmen may yet seek revenge. The president needs to find the vision and strength to rise above all this. He, if he acts as a team player, can indeed still re-build unity – as he has stated he wishes to. The response from the PML-N too has been positive. But beyond unity, we also need a plan, a strategy, a blue-print for the future. It is in devising and implementing this that the true heroes of the future will emerge. Pakistan’s multi-dimensional problems cannot be solved in isolation. They need to be assessed holistically and then tackled in a manner that ensures people are taken along, and their issues addressed. If these people are left by the sidelines the problems we face will only continue to increase, perhaps reaching a point where it is simply no longer possible to tackle them.

It is this possibility that almost everyone in the country fears and dreads. In every discussion, it seems apparent that the issues we face are immense. There are many doubts over the question of whether our leaders have the capacity and the ability to tackle them. It is for this reason that the actions that led to the judges returning had created so much excitement. There was a sense that a candle had been lit, throwing out a pool of light – however small – in an ocean of darkness, giving people lost in that tide some point to swim towards.

The primary task now for our leaders – particularly the prime minister who played a key role in creating that flicker of brightness – must be to make sure it expands. There is at present great fear that it may instead shrink and then die away. The hope that the president will take up the torch, and take steps that will help balance out a skewed political system, has come to naught. Mr Zardari seems to have endeavoured to do as little as possible. This means that, as happened before, it must be others who lead the way, finding a route that can take Pakistan towards a brighter future and by doing so dispelling the sense of panic that seems, once more, to be over-taking us – steadily but certainly.