Pakistan: The Clattering Train
By Mir Adnan Aziz
02 August,
2008
Countercurrents.org
"Who
is in charge of the clattering train? The axles creak and couplets
strain.
For the pace is hot and points are near, and sleep has deadened the
driver's ear.
And signals flash through the night in vain, ' Who' is in charge of
the clattering train!"
The London Charivari
The recent elections, with the routing of a totally discredited sitting government, generated an all time adrenaline high. By voting in the present dispensation, those in the electorate trusted them with their voice, believing in the adage - voice of the people is the voice of wisdom.
It also manifested the public's anger and utter disgust at the previous government's policies, their rhetoric notwithstanding, regarding the economy, security and the judges' issue.
The incumbent government, in these first months, has allowed these ills to metastasize. It has done so by constant back pedaling on these extremely crucial issues. This has resulted in a comatose governance system. It has also miserably failed to fathom the pre-election unrest and the subsequent democratic putsch, which swept the previous regime's inglorious feet off the corridors of power. The state today seems, as it was before, a tear away clattering train with no one at the controls.
Those elected have flouted the received mandate by doing absolutely nothing to counter the range and intensity of social and political conflict. This stark indifference has translated into extreme economic malaise, insecurity, political indecision and fears of a worse tomorrow down the road.
The only thing that has seemingly changed is the ruling pedigree. Bad governance, though, has been tooled, remolded and honed into an art. This rudderless governance has created holdouts and gridlock. We have seen societal sclerosis set in under these self-created burdens.
History is a silent witness to the decline and eventual destruction of great empires, what to say of nascent nations like us. In the same vein, the death knell sounds once the leadership of a country begins a brazen embezzlement of good and just governance and the resources of their various charges. This is the fate of all nations piloted by a privileged and elitist lot. In such states, reason capitulates.
Portents are forerunners of catastrophe. This government, despite an increasingly shrill rhetoric, is construed by the people as fighting to maintain a status quo, which benefits not them but Musharraf, the
United States and those gallivanting on endless foreign forays. Is it not strange that in these extremely uncertain times, Asif Zardari, the present A to Z of the governing party prefers to bless with his smiling presence alien lands rather than his own?
The state has suffered the loss of authority to compel obedience to the sanctions and provisions of its statutes and laws. It has also squandered the moral authority to compel obedience. To this end, violence and insecurity abounds all over. This kind of anarchy is an artificial creation, fashioned to keep the populace busy, while those who rule attend to matters of self import.
The frustrations of a multitude, reeling under an unprecedented price hike are enhanced by its callous trivialization by the ruling coterie. The gas price increase gaffe by a Minister, sans an apology, was supplemented by light hearted banter warning of more price hikes. Viewed in the backdrop of people committing suicide and killing their children for want of food, this seems even more sickening and pathetic.
No system is perfect. Wrong doing has a way of slipping in through cracks where ever evident. Even the most venerated of institutions and systems are contaminated by scandal. What though is unforgivable is a designed effort to create these cracks and an equally willful mutilation of the aspirations of a whole nation.
We saw this tragedy unfolding in the last eight years. What we see today are the same dark forces at work albeit cloaked in the garb of a popular mandate.
