Hold Your Fire!

It is extremely surprising, scary and more than a little disconcerting to listen to some of the self-proclaimed revolutionaries of Pakistan sitting in their drawing rooms and offices and blurting out their own suggestions on how all the maladies of this country can be remedied. The most popular way out, in the opinions of these intellectuals, is a bloody revolution similar to the ones that, in their view, brought the people of France, Russia and more recently Iran, out of their tragic lives and put them on the path towards a new and promising future. According to these thinkers (and there are a large number of them), the only way to improve the conditions in our country and transform it into one of the great nations of the world, is to line up just a few of the top brass, including some power hungry politicians, a few of the corrupt beaurucrats and some of these bloody soldiers and simply shoot them. That simple. Kill them and Weill be rid of all our worries.

It is surprising that well-educated people think on these lines. It is scary that if some psychopathic individual or group actually tried to do this, he would get more than a few supporters. And it is very disconcerting that all these Pakistanis feel that this is a distinct possibility.

This is not a new thought. It has been moving around intellectual circles for a long long time now. A number of people, who were against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto must have had the same notion, and as for those who hated Gen. Zia, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Gen. Musharraf and now Mr. Zardari, I have personally heard them expressing their desire to kill and live happily after.

I have a large number of problems with this way of thinking. My greatest concern is that we, as a nation, have historically acted in haste. We are always too eager to get rid of a certain individual or group but have absolutely no clue about who we intend to replace the said person or group with. Come to think of it. Had such a revolution come in the time of ZAB, would a certain General Zia ul Haq been among the ones lined up and shot? If a revolutionary army had toppled Gen. Zia, would they have killed a young and cheerful Benazir Bhutto with him? If the people had risen up against BB in the late 80s, would Nawaz Sharif have been one of the victims of their violent wrath? If Mian Sahib had become target of some collective murder, would one General Pervez Musharraf have joined him? And finally, if the lawyers movement had turned into the bloody revolution so eagerly awaited by us, would they have killed the harmless and irrelevant Asif Ali Zardari? The answer to all these questions, as far as I know, is No.
We do not need to strain our brains too much trying to figure out how to get rid of any of our leaders. Fate, or Allah, takes care of it. ZAB was hanged, Zia blown up, Mian and BB dismissed by their trusted colleagues and Musharraf resigned out of sheer exhaustion. Agreed, the people did play some part in the resignation of Gen. Musharraf, though one can only wonder how long he would have lasted even without the rise of the black coats. However, as for the other rulers, there can be no two opinions on the point that the revolutionaries had very little, if anything, to do with their removal. Why worry about a bloody revolution to oust someone who can be ousted by his own bloody fate? Removal by revolution would also have brought a new face with the same old characteristics to power.

Our problem is not how to get rid of a certain President, PM or General. Our concern should be how to ensure that someone worthy of the seat sits on it. Do we have any standards or guidelines to judge who our ruler(s) should be? Is there any clarity on the subject in any of our minds? Don’t we just carry a vague, uncertain picture of a leader in our minds and then simply keep deciding that anyone who rises to the top position in the state simply does not fit the bill? How long can we go on like this?

We are still not even clear if we want a parliamentary or a presidential system. Hell, were not even sure what we personally expect from a government. It is always much easier and infinitely more logical to rise up for something than to rise simply against something or someone.

Our forefathers rose against the British and the Hindus, succeeded and then got lost. We did not want the Hindus and the British, fair enough. But what did we want instead? After more than sixty years, we are the Islamic Republic of Pakistani and keep reading articles in the papers and listening to experts stating that Jinnah’s dream was a secular country and we should follow it. What utter confusion! We have Taliban pouring in from the Western borders and threatening to turn our women into Burqa clad mimes and Bollywood, Star Plus and Boogie Woogie marching in through our Eastern borders and trying to turn them into half-dressed, made-up, dancing decorations. And us. We condemn both. We hate both. We consider both an attack on our national identity. What that national identity actually is, who knows? And who the hell cares?

Revolutions in France and Iran were against monarchies that refused to listen to the plight of the people and did not have any plans to go anywhere. We don’t have any such problem. We live in a democracy. We are a nation that gained unprecedented freedom of expression even under a dictatorship. We have all the options in the world to grow, learn, groom and either choose or create alternative leaders. And if all else fails, we have more chances than people in most other countries, to try our hand at actually becoming that alternative.

The revolution in Russia was based on a new and hitherto untried philosophy, namely, communism. We have no such philosophy. The only thing we have is Islam and we don’t agree on anything in the religion. So a united uprising to implement the principles of Islam does not seem likely.

We need clarity. We need to know what we want, who we want and why we want it. Merely knowing what we don’t want is not enough. A revolution in our way of thinking is what we need. And that revolution starts with me, with every individual. Inquilaab Zindabad.