At the back of my mind, as I write this column on Tuesday evening is a disturbing thought about the countdown for the restoration of the judiciary to its 2nd November 2007 status and what lies ahead. One option is to take a cynical view. To presume that this too will pass? But I argue to myself, at what cost?
How far can we go on, as a nation, to pay the cost, which is being paid increasingly by the common man? For the common man believes now that the cost is not being paid by the elite in this society. Life for ordinary Pakistani people is turning extraordinarily terrifying, if that is one way of putting it.
While one prays that insanity does not take over our thought processes in the days ahead, there is every reason to look at the book launching ceremony of "The Gathering Storm Pakistan, Political; Economy of a Security State", written by Yousuf Nazar and also the speech that Sherry Rehman, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, as well as Minister for Health made before an unusually large audience at a local hotel on Sunday evening. It is perhaps relevant to refer here to a speaker that evening, Muneer Kamal, Chairman, KASB Bank; who recalled Dr Ishrat Husain's book, "Pakistan: the economy of an elite state". Other speakers were Jawaid Bokhari, Economics Editor, Dawn; and Saleem Raza, CEO, Pakistan Business Council; and Jamshed Mirza of the Royal Book Company.
The 146-page book is a collection of 28 articles that Yousuf Nazar wrote for Dawn beginning August 2006 to 17th March 2008, and has been published by the Royal Book Company. The launching was hosted by the 21st Century Business and Economics Club - its 104th event.
There is a compelling urgency in the subject of the book, and there is enough to worry about with grim references to what is ailing us, and what is a matter of more anxiety is the fact that the trickle-down effect of political, economic, and social ills is taking the nightmarish shape of breakdown on the streets, not just that. There is perhaps, in every facet of our life, and even in our conversations, and manners, our body language and postures, at individual level or collective, an ill at ease feeling, to say the least.
There is apparently a perceptible relationship between the themes that the book grapples with, and the speech that Sherry Rehman made that evening. As Information Minister she knew the latitude that she had, and as the new Federal Health Minister she was authentic when she revealed how appalling and shameful was the kind and quality of health cover that was available to the poor people of Pakistan in the field of public health. At one stage she said that there was no health policy in the country. She provided some details of how the health care system was lacking, and failing the people.
It made me wonder about all the generous, frequent and large scale advertising that was done by the previous government trumpeting what had been done by the Health Ministry, and in an overall framework of disbelief and distrust one thought about the absence of the trickle-down effect of all the economic policies that were pursued without remorse by that banker Shaukat Aziz, who conveniently exited the scene, which is what was always anticipated by the people much before he quietly went away.
The Information Minister categorically said that it was absolutely incorrect to say that the "Kashkol" (beggar's bowl) had been broken in Pakistan, and felt that if adequate urgent measures were not taken it was possible that problems could hit the people like a Tsunami. She underlined that there was no point in pursuing a blame game or carrying out any witch hunt, but believed that Pakistan was sinking, that its people were drowning and that the boat was splintering. It was that grave a situation. Never before in the history of this country have we had people sleeping on the streets, she said with feeling.
We now have families worried about the number of meals that they can have in a day, and she further said that all the cliches used to describe Pakistan's present plight were singularly truthful. The middle class has moved one rung down the economic ladder, and become lower middle class, she said. The Minister talked of the consenting, collaborating elite of the country, who sat in air-conditioned rooms, talked of all being well, when in point of fact what was being done was an exercise in business accommodation.
She recollected that the People's Party had once described the federal budget as a "gold card budget" and at another time as a "Mercedes Benz budget" and added that there was nothing wrong with it, provided the elite did it with their own money, and in their own time. Not with the people's taxes and people's time, was the implication - evidently.
There is much to quote from Yousuf Nazar's articles but this one extract supplements what Sherry Rehman said. Yousuf says that he arrived here in the spring of 2006 from London with the plan to move to Karachi after having spent a long time abroad. He writes in the book's introduction that "the chatter in Karachi's Sindh Club - a favourite haunt of Karachi's business elite for power lunches - was full of stories of which foreign bank was coming to buy what.
A CEO of one of the banks told me 'the economy is booming and the Musharraf-Shaukat team is the best we have had in a long time.' I listened quietly as he told me about his contacts with the President and the Prime Minister, who had turned the economy around."
A very pertinent point that was made that evening was about current world oil prices, which are flirting around 120 dollars a barrel. Yousuf Raza said that evening that he feared that in the next six months this oil price could be anything from 110 to 135 US dollars a barrel and it was also possible that in the next twelve months the price could hit 200 US dollars a barrel. What then, asks the common man in this country?
He is frightened, obviously. And when the eloquent Sherry Rehman, takes serious notice of this possibility there is something to contemplate, to worry. NB: Opec President Chakib Khalil has hinted that oil could hit 200 US dollars a barrel; and blamed the fall in the US dollar for the currently rising prices.
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