Where does the road to Islamabad lie?

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By Rasul Bakhsh Rais (professor of political science at LUMS)

It is both a human as well as a national challenge to face the truth when it strikes you directly in the face, in public view of the entire global community. There are no more than two ways to respond when someone is spying for other countries, committing treason or betraying the trust and confidence of his nation and people. One way is that once disgraced and discredited, the politicians and others, not holding political office but heading institutions, apologise and move out of public life and view. Societies take a lenient view of those who say ‘sorry’ on the grounds that man is fallible and all of us have some faults. But that is more in the area of personal affairs than national issues. One may argue that expressing open regrets over something wrong is civilised and deserves sympathy and public understanding.

The other way of dealing with wrongs that are caught on tape or documented in diplomatic cables is to deny them, as our political class has always done, their media minion often taunting the stubborn questioner by saying: “Where is the evidence”? If you have one, go to the court”. Such statements that party leaders and their paid spokesmen and women make on daily basis amount to insults basic human intelligence. It is the government institutions that have the information and it is the government that orders inquiries and conducts prosecution. Let us suppose if a coterie is intent on robbing a country but it acquires power with public support and does it legally under the constitution — what is the remedy then? The remedy lies in separation of power, institutional autonomy and legal responsibility based on an individual’s social contract with society. Without a legal sanction such a contract can be flouted the way our political elite have so often done.

The ruling groups of Pakistan, wearing labels of political parties and claiming legacies and political inheritance, committed every wrong in the political book by concentrating powers in their own hands and crippling every state institution that could check their arbitrary authority. Their mantra is too familiar to our ears — “we have committed wrongs, we are subjects of political victimisation, and there is a conspiracy against us”.

The Pakistani print and electronic media has done a wonderful job in exposing plunders by the ruling groups, but the response to every scam has the same response — “we have done nothing wrong”. Their lifestyle, properties in and outside the country and the massive amount of Pakistani wealth stashed away in foreign banks, companies and financial institutions cannot be explained. Having such characters in the most powerful positions is only the fate of weak societies and disenfranchised people, which we are.

Beyond corruption, another side of Pakistan’s ruling groups has come into light, thanks to WikiLeaks. The groups are clients seeking American help to come into power or stay in power. And they are morally bankrupt in spying on their fellow politicians, denouncing them as being unfaithful to Washington, while presenting themselves as loyal, trustworthy and the best ‘horses’ for American leaders to bet on. While claiming to have popular support, every political figure meeting American diplomats appears to be seeking their favour and goodwill.

Does the road to Islamabad lie through Washington? This is one question that we may debate in the coming months. The evidence that Pakistani players lack self-respect and personal dignity is so strong that saying it is a Jewish-American conspiracy against the leaders of Islamic countries cannot wash it away.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2010