1988 was 30 years back. Since then, 8 elections have been held in Pakistan. Yet, the core issue of governance, which goes to the heart to the fundamental incompatibility between resources and requirements, remains untouched. Unattended also is the population time bomb, because it is seemingly draped in religious robes, making it more an issue of high emotion instead of instructive information.
Repeatedly, through the decades, the test of leadership has failed. Over and over, elections are packaged as solutions and deployed to placate restive populations as a diversionary pacifier. But the placebo effect is fleeting. The problems remain as is. Stagnant figures resurface.
It brings into play Einstein’s theory on foolishness: doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different result.
Is the remedy to deep divisions, and the hate that permeates, routine electoral exercises? Or do these only deepen factionalism?
Through electronic media and social media, incivility has now been unleashed.
In Yugoslavia, noted dissenter Milovan Djilas – widely regarded as a potential successor to Josef Tito until his expulsion from office and from the Communist Party central committee in 1954 – wrote an acclaimed book in 1957, “The New Class.” The book encompasses a broader point: that after political turmoil in which a new regime comes to power, a new ruling class emerges that, over time, acts and behaves much like the old class. So the old order is dressed up in a new uniform.
But the phenomenon of desire for change cannot be underestimated. It creates its own tempo and momentum. There is yearning for a new car and the lure of the scent of a new car. But as soon as the new car is driven, its value begins to depreciate.
In Subcontinental filmdom, the name of the Peshawar-born Raj Kapoor stands tall as a showman. But often, it is overlooked that it was the music of Shankar-Jaikishan, the lyrics of Shailendra, and Hasrat Jaipuri (Iqbal Husain), and the voice of Mukesh that carried the day. And the public only gets to see those who do the lip-syncing, without paying adequate attention to the background music and who is actually doing the playback singing behind the curtains.
Past electoral history tells that the more things change, the more they remain the same. The status quo is adept in hiding behind the niqab of change. Poor governance, therefore, persists, along with the pattern of over-catering to the over-privileged.
The core challenges of governance looming ahead can be confined to two key issues:
(1) overwhelming influence and crushing monopoly of the oligarchy and the super-rich; breaking this stranglehold would be the first step; and
(2) slow-motion fragmenting of national identity, through the separatist creation of more provinces, under the hijab of administrative streamlining and provincial autonomy – a scheme hatched abroad. Those seduced and duped don’t see its ramifications. It would open the floodgates of dividing tribalism, while undercutting the unifying umbrella of Muslim nationhood, which was a binding strength driving the ideology of the Pakistan Movement. Tribalism is un-Islamic. In effect, if not in intent, its impact could be potentially treasonous.
Heed what happened to Yugoslavia.
