New York Blues

SEPTEMBER 2000 - It shouldn’t surprise anyone when government functionaries continue to botch things up. For one thing, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be in the government, the institution (as in mental), having committed itself to the principles of quality botching. Those who were expecting miracles to flow from the Big Apple when the CE was there, should have looked at the records of the past to understand that nothing like that ever flows from there to here. With so many experts floating around, what else can be the out come?

And there was no shortage of experts, including the ones here who to start with, planned a live telecast of the CE’s address in NY to the expectant folks back home. The little matter of time difference did not exactly shine like a bright light in Islamabad at the Ministry of (Dis)information and PTV where such fiascos are planned with devotional absurdity. For years altogether, we have been at the receiving end of these proud moments when our illustrious leaders spoke at world forums and held a nation in their thrall as they told the world in thundering style what they thought of everybody and their uncle. Begging bowls we may carry but when it comes to the spoken word, few can compare with the pomposity, which our chosen and unchosen ones hurl at the universe.

What was the need to telecast the CE’s address in the first place? It wasn’t going to be a landmark in the relations with India and neither was a solution of the Kashmir problem about to be announced. What was going to be said could be relayed a few hours later. This wasn’t Mohammad Ali fighting Joe Frazier coming live and as such, a telecast worth staying up all night for. This was, at best, another speech. Once the debacle became obvious and the unexpected delay sent a tremor up the spineless backs of the experts, it was time to go to work, papering over the calamity, white washing the muck and generally sweeping away tell tale evidence of the good old, regular botch up. A newspaper which broke the news about the financial disaster that had cost PTV (that’s us since we pay for the damn thing) millions, was blatantly denied by the authorities that be, and instead cynical Pakistanis who are well versed in the lies that are regularly beamed out from the nation’s pristine capital, were told that only a few rupees had been spent. Allah be praised ! Had it been up to the spooks that plot and plan these adventures, they would have been happy to deny the CE had even left the country provided such a diversion would have ensured their welfare.

And while the witch doctors chanted their mantras in New York hoping to cast a self-serving spell on everyone as long as the CE rode the steed of success over the prostrate bodies of those who were not supportive – Vajpayee and Begum Hasina, to name two, a bemused nation, barely interested and between long yawns watched the latest unfolding of more chaos from the country’s illustrious sons at work in USA. By all accounts, and there are many, the CE didn’t exactly enjoy his visit to the land of opportunity, milk, honey and Meg Ryan. There was the ABC anchorman, Peter Jennings who was outrightly dismissive and whose opening salvo landed smack where it was intended to. There was Bill Clinton who had two hours to spare watching the US Open, but not a minute for our CE. There was Mr. Vajpayee who insolently rejected everything that the CE said and generally showed Pakistan the shortest route to hell. There was sister Hasina, who having fallen into Delhi’s nefarious trap, was most uncooperative and uncharitable. There was the HUBCO team showing up like a bad penny – many pennies actually and there was the menagerie of hacks, journalists, pen pushers, ideology-flame throwers and others who wield pens and well thumbed note books. There was the business community, which is half in, and half out with whoever is in power at any given time and there were the great investors who actually never showed up. Mercifully there were no MOUs signed as used to be the fashionable ‘achievement’ in BB and Mian’s time, but this time there weren’t even any takers for the hollow MOUs. Our stock, such as it is, had dived even lower than ever before.

So the CE made a stirring speech and some people actually heard it. JJ and his team were rushing from pillar to post or as seems to have been the case, from pillar to pillar, desperately trying to salvage the despondent situation. The sorry fact is that the CE’s visit didn’t exactly set the US house on fire. Just about everyone other than those who had fallen asleep at the session, had deplored the shackling of democracy (even the vermin infested variety that we had) and demanded a return to civilian rule and the end of the country’s embarrassingly periodical martial law disease. Aid, support, finances, projects, funding, everything was tied in with a return to civilian rule and nobody was talking Dutch. The only thing is that the spooks are so used to living out lies and so focused on pushing their personal agendas forward that anything which does not conform to their value system, is automatically discarded and trashed as Indian-inspired-funded malicious propaganda or worse, Zionist-fed, anti-Islamic drivel and therefore, a diabolical move to discredit us. No one is prepared to call a spade a spade – which is not surprising actually since no official is genetically capable of identifying a spade, even if it is in a pack of cards.

All this, the bad press, the PR nightmare, the largely ignored noises made by the slapdash delegation that toured the Big Apple, eventually found their way to the favourite whipping boy - the bad boys, the press wallas. They came under fire and the CE laid the blame for all our misfortunes squarely on them. Like many, many leaders before him, civilian and military, it was the pen pushers who were the root cause of all evil. The only kind of journalism that Islamabad has ever tolerated is the ‘positive kind.’ Nothing else is good enough. Some have even said that if journalists can’t provide ‘constructive criticism’ the government would be more than happy to go the extra mile. This is all fine and dandy, but we all know that when translated into vulgar and commonplace language, ‘constructive criticism’ simply means no criticism. This is very easy to manufacture since all it requires is for a person to be dumb, deaf and blind and readily programmable. Of this substandard variety, there have been many sterling examples in Pakistan. Great names, on ISI payrolls, regular stipend receivers, plot accumulators, license collectors, deal makers and others who always had the vision to line their pockets and streamline their ethics.

There has been a rich harvest of such men and women and they still flourish. They always will, supported by the rulers today and as they were, yesterday. But not all are on grants and scholarships from Islamabad and those are the ones who came in for a tongue lashing from the frustrated CE. That aside, the truth is – and ouch it hurts, we are insignificant players on the world stage, known more for our strategic nuisance value than anything else. And when you are poor and destitute as well, what do you expect the world to say? Love you baby?