How shocked, saddened and apprehensive can one be at what has happened in Peshawar, Quetta and then finally in Lahore on Monday, the 7th of December - the day the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court was taking up the petitions relating to the National Reconciliation Ordinance in Islamabad. Indeed, Pakistan is in grim, grave times. It is very pertinent to imagine the state of mind of the traumatised people of Pakistan.
What their fears are about the future is also evident. I had thought that one would be focusing, on Monday, on the Supreme Court proceedings, which was the number one story on the TV channels, and which people are hoping would bring about some major developments and political changes, vertically and horizontally. The people are also hoping that there would be some transparent accountability of the influential men and women who got huge loans from commercial banks in the Musharraf rule and then had them written off.
That list was made public last week and once again it afforded us all an opportunity to ponder at how the elite have plundered the wealth of the Pakistan. Keeping in mind that corruption is possibly Pakistan's number one challenge (read growing problem), one may also bear in mind that the much-discussed report of the Transparency International was released late last month and it portrayed how much worse off the country is when it comes to the perception about corruption in Pakistan.
To lose hope on this count of ever even minimising corruption in the foreseeable future is to be realistic? I do not know. What is Pakistan's number one problem is a question that is often raised and discussed in a climate where the complexity of internal and external challenges and the surfacing of new and old threats is enhancing the anxiety of the common man.
One hopes that the names of the people on the above lists, are also placed on an effective sort of Exit Control List, insisted one citizen who fumes that the people who misrule manage to get away from this country. I think it is relevant to suggest here that while there are certain issues that have national dimensions there are others that are provincial and local in their implications, repercussions.
However, in the ultimate, it is the country that is what matters. Is corruption Pakistan's number one problem? Or it is terrorism, which some argue is an offshoot of long-standing bad governance and rampant injustice and so on. If corruption is our primary disease, how do we go about treating it? And when will the time come to carry out the life-saving surgery that is required to remove the cancer that is spreading rapidly across the body politic?
This is a question that is asked by citizens who believe that Pakistan is fast running out of options, keeping in mind the escalation in the breakdown of law and order, despite what official claims keep underlining. What has happened on Monday is actually terrifying. I spent all day in a state of quite unexpressed fear, without actually knowing it. I was following the developments viz-a-viz the judiciary and the NRO and in doing was living in the terrain of hope.
Without hope, what is happening around us, daily can be devastating. Without hope, the inefficiency, and the injustice and the immorality that characterise much of our lifestyle at the top and at the bottom have actually can a suicidal effect. Without doubt the people have high hopes of the judiciary and this faith is reassuring. Whether the judiciary alone can remedy all our ills is a million dollar question. What about the other institutions in the country?
Having said this, one prays for the city and people of Peshawar and the repeated assaults that the city has suffered this year. I have very fond memories of the city, which I first visited in the mid-seventies. That was, in a way, one of the two cities that I had imagined I would reside, in at some point in time.
Not just its history, heritage, geopolitical location, but the old-world leisurely charm, and the hospitality of the Peshawaris were fascinating. The gentle rhythm of the city and the intensity of the winters attracted me. And the fact that city was not congested and frightfully urban was a thought that brought relief.
And Quetta, the capital of Balochistan was the other small city, amidst the mountains that I first visited in the mid-seventies that appealed to me for the quiet and tranquil mood that it had, day and night. And over the years, and as time went past, my friendships became stronger, and my familiarity with the people only heightened my desire to consider it as one of the two cities where one could reside for a reasonable period of time.
Not this time, but one day I must write about Peshawar and Quetta, especially the latter and what it has meant to me in professional and personal terms over a lifetime. What would my own life have been like had I really changed cities is a thought that does surface occasionally. But then, there are so many roads that one has not taken, over a lifetime.
Tonight, as the depressing details of Lahore's blast come in, I am distracted by a news report, which says that "US diplomat alleges some al Qaeda leaders are in Quetta". It is stated in this report (December 5, Dawn) that the US consul general in Peshawar Ms Candace Putnam had said "our intelligence shows that some of the al Qaeda leadership is in Pakistan".
It was also asserted the Taliban Shura was in Quetta. She further said that "I don't know where Osama Bin Laden is on any given day, but we do know that some of the leadership is sitting in Quetta and they travel back and forth from Afghanistan to Pakistan". The US diplomat is quoted as saying, "we know they are there. And I think your government also knows this. Whether they want to say this in public or not, but I think they know they are there".
And the Balochistan governor Nawab Zulfiqar Magsi has been quoted as saying a few days ago, that drone attacks in Balochistan cannot be opposed as Washington is "paying Pakistan". In fact, this sort of sentiment has been heard within Pakistan many times. There is neither any such thing as a free lunch, nor aid, without strings really.
Finally - just as I wonder about my favourite cities Quetta and Peshawar, I also contemplate, like the rest of us, what lies ahead for the country as a whole. Both these are no longer, evidently, the kind of cosy quiet cities I saw first time, about 35 years ago. But then for that matter, Karachi that I have lost is a regret that stings once in a while.
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