Pakistan:  Political Curse Needs Urgent Cure

Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD

“America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistan’s growing military and strategic ties to China, America’s primary global strategic rival. In the ‘Great Game’ for global hegemony, any country that impedes America’s world primacy – even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan – may be sacrificed upon the altar of war……….  Pakistan will very likely continue to be destabilized and ultimately collapse. What is not mentioned in these assessments, however, is the role of the military and intelligence communities in making this a reality; a veritable self-fulfilling prophecy.” Andrew Gavin Marshall “Imperial Eye on Pakistan- Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1 (Global Research: 5/30/2011)

The corrupt PPP- military combined governance is a replica to what happened to the integrity of Pakistan in 1971 to dismantle the unity of Pakistan and the Generals and Bhutto surrendered the East wing to India to maintain their illegal political power. Once again, the same players have enacted the same tragic drama of power grabbing to stab again the remaining body of Pakistan.  Prevalent moral, psychological and political curse of the few egomaniac monsters premeditates all to zero sum game that Pakistani people aspire to look for. Stupidity and ignorance have come to rule, whereas, proactive vision, honesty and wisdom is in dire scarcity across the Pakistani political spectrum to re-enact the capacity-building – a moral and intellectual encompassed political leadership boost to the lifelines of the worn out national skeleton. Islam strives for collective thinking and approaches to complex problems - a community of likeminded people –intellectual and professional resourceful teamwork sharing best expertise and their experiences to find workable remedies, otherwise unattainable. There is a cure to curse generated by the Bhutto family and now inherited and onward implanted by the Zaradri regime. Once corruption comes into systematic societal thinking and practical domains and conditions which are conducive to political cruelty, insanity and moral and spiritual curse are established, the disease spreads with frightful rapidity. The federal governance, the assemblies, the Generals and the official infrastructures all reflect the sadistic outlook for more worst to come. More and more a nation lost with moral and spiritual power of unity find itself stranglehold by its inner generated conflicts of dark mindset and perverted priorities. What about situations where all is deliberately ruptured by insanity of the few, shattered apart, disintegrated to enrich few cruel monsters into extended governance - that is contemporary Pakistan? How to change the worst into best? In a knowledge-driven 21^st century global culture of change and human development and given the abundant resources of Pakistani’s educated classes enriched with forward looking visions, intellects and zeal, lot of ills can be diagnosed into workable solutions only if people with positive THINKING and dedicated energies were engaged in an organized scheme of things to pursue such vital national priorities.  Volatile issues demand urgent care and cure, not national curse to those who claim to be the political linchpin of the country.  Many divides exist between what is said officially by the PPP run crime- riddled administration and what the thinking masses experience in daily despairs, social, economic misfortunes and political horrors, street bloodbaths and foreign drone attacks, killing of the civilians, non productive commerce and trade, nothing moves in any rational direction to make their survival come true - a gruesome portrayal of so called democracy at work. The in-house tragedy of vices and ruins so apparent, rather than finding solutions within the political activism, some smart guys find convenient sidetracks to run to the Supreme Court - a self-serving practice to avoid politically generated solutions to a naïve and lost sense of reality. Legal judgment do not change the human character or bring revolution nor determine the destiny of people or pave ways for sustainable societal change and development. History as a learning medium of knowledge is ignored; obsessive and on-going curse of the few feebleminded distorts the spirit of optimism. If Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Jinnah-Qauid E- Azam  and Liaqaut Ali were alive, they would have disowned this disdained prevalent national culture of wickedness – a “zalam and muzloom quom”  (nation) co-existing with the oddest to its origin and against its very moral and spiritual foundation.  Barbara…. A British journalist (Journey to Khyber Pass), a friend of late Miss Benazir Bhutto from her school attendance at Oxford describes something unusual. She came to see Miss Bhutto in early 1990 at the Prime Minister House and was well received. An army Colonel was to look after her visit and meeting with Benzair. While at the PM House, the Colonel raped Barbara in the luncheon room and she wondered why this unscheduled act of performance at the PM residence in day light. The Pakistani Colonel told her, it is normal, every day, Benazir and Zardari have friends and do lot of fun, no different than a prostitution house. When she met the PM, Benazir told Barbara “I cannot smoke nor drink in front of this crazy nation.” Barbara spells out that all concerned were aware of this corrupt culture at the time.

Nobody knows what is next - the best guessed politics of business as usual.  Men who are established corrupt, devoid of reason and honesty, indicted criminals and universally hated and rejected become “Our Man in Islamabad” – America’s Mr. Zardari and the Gang to rule Pakistan. Nothing else except ignorance of the facts of life reinforces the observation and image that the nation is demoralized and delusional lacking any sense of rational THINKING for its present and future.  Would a Change and Cure to the prevalent Curse come out of the nowhere?

The nation must realize the triviality and viciousness of the PPP- Generals naïve governance and opt out of the terrible sense of helplessness and imposed insanity of the few. Foreigners will not help Pakistan, their plans are working to disintegrate Pakistan. Nation’s own future is at stake. Andrew Gavin Marshall “Imperial Eye on Pakistan- Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1 (Global Research: 5/30/2011) states that “in December of 2000, the CIA released a report of global trends to the year 2015, which stated that by 2015, “The war in Afghanistan is inherently related to the situation in Pakistan……….Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.”[1] Further, it was predicted, Pakistan:

Will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction. Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties.”

“Pakistan-Psychodrama of Corrupt Politics” (opinion maker: 12/5/2011) the author noted the following observations:

“American friendship is more dangerous than its publicly defined animosity. Rejecting cynicism but pondering on the US rationale of “war on terrorism”, there are ample similarities of the blueprint what happened in Iraq, the same fate could be waiting for Pakistan.” 

The US leadership is entrapped in its own follies of war on terrorism. They appear to have lost on every major front of encounters in this adventure. Imagine, 40 years earlier Pakistan assisted American leadership - Nixon and Kissinger on PIA went to make the first historic diplomatic trip to China, met Mao Tse Tung to articulate and  define a new chapter of history in their ever progressive relationships away from the cold war ideological confrontations and wars. Obama did not bother even to mention Pakistan at such an auspices occasion when China’s VP Xii Piing -the next President is on an official visit to the US. What Obama did do, he killed 10 innocent civilian Pakistanis by drone attacks whose funerals were telecast on the global screen.

As of now, the Supreme Court found the PM Gilani guilty of the contempt of court in refusal to re-open the money laundering case against Zardari and his dead wife Bhutto in a Swiss Court of Law. Missing sense of rational responsibility to the interest of the nation and Pakistan was undermined and Zardari was preferred by the self- made PM. What are the characteristic of responsible people’s governance?  After blatant attack by the US led NATO operatives and killing of innocent 24 Pakistani troops on Pak-Afghan border, the movements of good and service to NATO were stopped in reaction by the authorities. NATO –America refused to apologize for this aggression and cold blooded massacres, yet the NATO supplies have again started to move to Afghanistan without any policy change. One can imagine, Pakistani ruling warlords must be well paid by the US cash dollars.

Like the cancerous ego, PPP-Generals governance tend on following a course of favorite perversion - away from the national interest of the people to increased torture, insanity of allowing the American drone attacks and bogus war on terrorism, murder of innocent civilians in Waziristan and elsewhere in the tribal belts - the known political monsters continue the game to divide and rule the human consciousness. Conscientious and thinking people of Pakistan must strive to workout freedom from exploitation and death squads operated by these cruel rulers. A dire sense of reality would ask for change and reformation of the cancerous political governance.

Andrew Gavin Marshall (“Imperial Eye on Pakistan- Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1 - Global Research: 5/30/2011), points out that David Kilcullen advisor to “President Obama warned in April of 2009, that Pakistan could collapse within months, and that, “We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now.” The adviser explained that this would be unlike the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which each had a population of over 30 million, whereas  “Pakistan has [187] million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.”

Plato noted that “thinking is man’s natural instrument for problem solving….any problem could be solved by thought.” There is a challenge and an opportunity for the new generation of thinking people to articulate a NEW FUTURE.

The Pakistani nation must see the mirror – look at itself straight, candidly and with fullest sense of responsibility:    who they were, where they are and where they are heading to - or the Nation stands no chance for the recourse or coming out of the deadly political stunts of the few, time killing legal battles and the historical graveyards. If the nation was not complacent in all of these sadistic misfortunes, the Generals, Bhuttos, Zardaris and Sharifs would have never had opportunities to molestation of the moral, intellectual and spiritual culture and values of Islamic Pakistan. None of these political figures (Bhuttos, Generals, Zardari and Sharifs and Chaudries) made any positive contributions toward a functional democracy nor did they have any knowledge of it to do so and to safeguard the integrity and security of Pakistan. History has a defined role and the present and future generations must give credence to these developments and learn to be aware of the future in waiting, and how best to make a navigational change to ensure independence and integrity of an Islamic Pakistan. If some were alive and you were to ask the Generals, Bhuttos, Zardaris and Sharifs, what went wrong with them?  What made them to transgress against the poor masses of Pakistan? Why were they dismissed from the public offices? What made them to act like cruel traitors to the interest of the Pakistani people?  Why could they not change their wrong THINKING?  Surely, they will claim innocence and blame others. But history sees the nations and leaders by their actions, not by their claims.

To safeguard from further collapse and economic and political destruction, Pakistan must be reconnected to its original ideology and purpose of the freedom movement from the colonial rule. Even if the obvious circumstances deny place for creative solutions and a new political system for change and freedom from the absurdity of the Few, but if there are mindful and active people of Reason and dedication to pursue change, the political framework - infrastructures (thoughts, people, institutions and priorities) of the Nation can be uplifted, reformed and rebuilt out of the deliberate chaos and neglect, political mismanagement and ruins of the few corrupted rulers. Could the THINKING PEOPLE of Pakistan reverse the course of junk history and make a new beginning based on the Islamic ideology and values of the concept of Pakistan? If so, hopefully Iqbal, Rahmat Ali, Jinnah, Liaquat Ali, Tameezuddin, Nazamuddeen, Ghulam Rasool, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Moudoodi and their much anguished and deserted souls could re-visit the left-over half skeleton of the nation that appears ever void of rational spaces to be THINKING of new ideas and workable solutions to the prolonged curse of the Bhutto-Zardari- Musharaf- Generals- Sharifs-Chaudries  families.  After much degeneration and annihilation of the nation’s political activism, morality, sense of direction, public institutions and trust, could the new generations of educated, honest and intelligent Pakistanis get a breathing space - ANEW opportunity denied in the past, to initiate and build new political institutions and introduce educated proactive visionary leadership and help to protect the intellectual foundation, integrity and security of the besieged nation?

Pakistan desperately NEEDS in-house men of NEW IDEAS and intellectual and moral strength to MAKE A NEW BEGINNING and sustainable solutions away from the corrupt political and military absolute authoritarianism. Pakistan needs navigational change but there is no political system to facilitate durable political change on its own in a peaceful manner. Another military take over will not solve any problems but create more. One can imagine the most viable solution to the serve the interest of the beleaguered people would be to immediately remove the Zardari regime (although criminals do not go with out getting busted), and bring-in a non-political-non-partisan educated leadership and credible government for one to two years with the public mandate to devise a new constitution and encourage new generation educated Pakistanis to establish new political institutions and then arrange the next national elections for new assemblies and new governance. A keen sense of time and history with a focused mind and collective will can refurbish the nation and its dusted aspirations to find a workable cure for the on-going political curse inhibiting all positive thinking and optimism for the future. Late Dr. Ali Shariati often reminds us that “when people live in darkness, they lose sense of direction.” The THINKING hub of the society must endeavor to use collective thoughts and resolve with an inward eye - an eye not merely to an illusion of change but primary realties of political change with a commitment to the purpose and meaning of Pakistan and its freedom with a distinctive recognition that they have to transform the current absurdity into positive solutions onward to continuing building a better and promising future for the people of Pakistan.