May 5, 2012
Abbas Nasir

WHENEVER politics in Pakistan hits choppy waters conspiracy theorists come into their own, clarity becomes a victim, all of us struggle to find the truth and get obsessed with the ‘nuance’.

But who’d blame our tribe? How are we expected to provide lucidity to a discourse when many of us have contributed to the chaotic scenario staring us in the face? Whether our role was spurred by competitive pressures or ideological considerations is immaterial quite frankly.

If you are struggling to make sense of a single word so far, my future as an analyst, as a soothsayer, is as secure as that of the chief of army staff. I am embarrassed to concede there was the temptation to say the elected prime minister.

But by the time this appears in print, who knows, the detailed verdict may be out giving short shrift to my analysis. That would spell disaster for my career as someone whose ‘reliable and respected’ insight allows some readers to help understand complex issues and the writer to pay the bills.

Does this mean, I can afford to hold my piece (yeah, yeah I know the spelling) till the final verdict or till the first tank appears on Islamabad’s famed Constitution Avenue, aptly termed Eighth Amendment Avenue all through the years the sacred document was all but superseded by it?

Definitely not! It isn’t without reason that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’ remains my favourite guiding principle. Which analyst worth their salt would shy away from analysis on the mere pretext that they are confused too and can’t make head or tail of the situation? Lamest of lame excuses, you’d say.

For one who is always partial to things psychedelic, the current backdrop is an incentive rather than the opposite. Let’s start with Gen Kayani’s address to a large open-air audience in the GHQ grounds. The occasion was a remembrance for our fallen soldiers.

The general’s speech was ‘nuanced’, given the political situation. So nuanced that one side of the political divide latched on to his recommendation for ‘equal justice to all’, while the other gleefully embraced his view that ‘all organs (institutions) of the state should respect the constitution’ and stay within its bounds.

It’s a hint of the times, perhaps, that apart from a lonely editorial in this paper, nobody really asked if the constitution allows the army chief to make political statements. Nobody suggested, at some point in time, it would help greatly if he focused on the ‘mistakes, shortcomings’ of his own institution.

We aren’t talking of minor transgressions here, overt as well as covert, or the most serious, the subversion of the constitution. We only need him to focus on the second line of defence his organ of the state has chosen and what that’s done to our society, sanity and security.

And if he is trying to rein in this galloping monster no matter how slowly, as many of his supporters say, then we can only applaud and welcome that. We know how committed some of his predecessors were to this insane ideology of hate.

In a week which we saw scenes bordering on the suicidal in the National Assembly, reviving fears of, well, the known, the Supreme Court short order holding the country’s chief executive guilty of contempt continued to provide grist to the analysts’ mill whatever their preferred medium.

They were as diverse in their reading (one has to be polite and civil, doesn’t one?) of the situation as the politicians.

Perhaps spooked by perceived PTI inroads into PML-N’s bastion of Punjab and succumbing finally to hardliners Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and younger brother Shahbaz, Nawaz Sharif decided to go on the front foot in announcing he was seeking the prime minister’s ouster by any means possible.

In contrast, the great Khan’s cricketing instinct prevailed. He decided to wait for the detailed verdict and play the ball on merit. Having been a feared fast bowler and having faced equally fiery ones, perhaps he knows best how a bouncer can imperil a batsman going prematurely on to the front foot.

But his detractors would say, without proof of course, his caution has more to do with the retirement of ISI chief Shuja Pasha and hence the lack of decisive counsel. This would predictably lead to cries of derision in every shade of the language from his fanatical supporters.

Talking of attempts to get on to the front foot, the government came up with its own effort. A resolution reposing confidence was passed in different sittings of the two houses of parliament. But this supposed triumph was soured too.

Another resolution passed to express support for the creation of a separate province in southern Punjab was apparently moved in the National Assembly without consulting the ANP allies and, by the evening, their senior spokesman Zahid Khan was saying his party hadn’t voted for it.

If all this doesn’t leave you confused try this. All through the initial days of the memogate controversy, we saw press photographs, footage, of meetings between our civilian and military-intelligence heads looking exceedingly grim to say the least.

This week we saw apex-level consultation on restarting relations with the US. In the footage, the president was apparently cracking a joke which brought a muted smile to the army chief’s lips (I am told he doesn’t laugh).

The sight of a laughing Rehman Malik wasn’t surprising as his loyalty to his leader would so warrant. The prime minister also smiles frequently. But yes, the broadest, widest grin adorned the face of the otherwise serious, moustached, even fierce-looking, new chief of the ISI.

Now how significantly nuanced is the ISI chief’s reaction to the PPP leader’s joke? Please let me know if you figure it out. I promise to do the same if I have any luck. As long, of course, as we don’t tell each other the smile is the precursor to the proverbial last laugh.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
-Dawn