Squeezing Stones

JULY 2004 - Good sense and intellectual discourse coming from the Assemblies is like squeezing stones and expecting water to come gushing out. It just doesn’t happen. The imposition of the ‘graduate law’ that felled many aspiring legislators did not pave the way for men of good breeding, common sense and a visionary outlook on life didn’t quite yield any results. The usual suspects emerged. Stupidity was back in fashion. One look at the emerging victors was enough to snuff out any wild notion that we might have harboured about a change in the landscape. Blubber was in, intellect was out. Thick necked and narrow-minded men and women of all shapes and sizes took oaths and the horse and monkey show was under way. The general’s new democracy was in full swing. Devolution sounding more and more like Evolution.

Having said all that, why should there have been any expectations anyway? In our times, hardly any of the Assemblies – and there have been many in spite of grabbing generals, has ever had more than a handful of good men and women, who with the sheer brilliance that comes from within might have shaped and improved the quality of thinking. And one uses the term ‘handful’ in its most generous sense. The few that somehow survived the rotten but effective ‘baradari’ system, were like travelers lost in the vast spaces of great deserts. If they had anything remarkable to say, no one was prepared to hear them. Amidst the gorilla-like thumping of desks, the national anthem of all legislators, their feeble voices were lost in the greater noise that engulfed what are still euphuistically referred to as ‘sessions.’ Other than raising the prices of spirits in the capital when the National Assembly is meeting and likewise in the provinces, nothing significant has emerged from days and days of ‘sessions’ with hundreds of MNAs and MPAs making speeches that remain largely irrelevant, terribly low in quality and of no use whatsoever to man or beast. If a recording of all the things that have been uttered in the Assemblies is ever played, it will be one long, unending sound of drivel at its highest level.

In recent months, even cursory glances at the proceedings of the august houses have revealed that while the world is getting along, we are still trapped in verbosity and gibberish that is supposed to fashion our destiny and put us on a high level ‘amongst the comity of nations’ as the government favourite catch phrase goes. Some weeks back, when a debate – well we have to call it a debate although there was no such thing, was initiated on the New Murree in the Punjab Assembly, it took less time than Roger Bannister to run the mile in the year dot, before the ‘bill’ was passed. Passing water would take longer. That a proposed development of another monster of cement and steel was being unleashed amongst the few struggling pines of the Murree Hills, an area where soil studies dating back to 1982 have again and again warned of dire consequences of unchecked building, was rushed through without so much as a second glance. The Planet of the Apes in full glory. Of course a slap on the head and a kick in the backside for those who still believe that Assemblies consider all things before taking decisions. Even a perfunctory exercise of feigned evaluation was not considered necessary. The Opposition in Pakistan which is full of great visions and mindful of rights and obligations as long as it is in opposition, made a few appropriate bleating sounds before they were bulldozed by the heavyweights of the ruling junta.

The New Murree where opportunities to mint money – buy cheap, sell high, are going to literally cascade into the laps of the heavies met with full support from the top heavy Treasury Benches – although Treasury Sofas would be more like it. Smelling the scent of crisp blue Quaid-e-Azams arriving by the sackful, they ensured that the bill went through like a hot knife through ‘desi ghee.’ As for the environment or Murree Hills slipping into oblivion – well they simply were not looking that far ahead. Earlier, the Chief Minister who is currently planning an underpass to link his bedroom with his bathroom, had inaugurated a dicey housing-apartment complex at the site of the old Cecil Hotel in Murree. When quizzed about hundreds of pine trees getting the chop, he replied with a cheery, ‘well more trees will grow there.’ There you have the government’s environmental policy in a nutshell. The fact that the scheme, a Karachi land-grabber’s quick kill, was in court and had violated all the laws of the land (ha, ha, ha), was of no consequence to the CM who was delighted to journey to the site – Ground Zero, inaugurate the scheme and break bread with the robbers. The new order in full bloom. Enough to remember that the same Punjab Assembly which flew the Murree bill at Mach 2 through faint objections, saw it fit to to do a mudslinging 45-minute harangue on headgear. Men and women traded insults, used deplorable language and even more deplorable signs. A crusade, fought like street roughs over the use of ‘pupates’ and the obligatory beards as if these two items alone could change our destiny. Non-issues, irrelevant in the extreme, became matters of intense life and death. Issues such as the contentious Wage Board award received a nanosecond’s perusal before it was passed. If Pakistan is attacked tomorrow, trust the Assemblies to debate vulgarity in the theatre instead.

Now more members of the National Assembly have been making fools of themselves and us too, shackled as we are hopelessly to their exalted and puffy ankles. This time, the grave issue that gives the MNAs sleepless nights is Mr. Shaukat Aziz’s real religious persuasion and identity. In a debate that does not border on the ridiculous but plunges right across, questions have been raised about his being a true believer or not – or for the thick-headed, a reference to his being a member of the sect that cannot be named. Mr. Aziz has defended himself stoutly, reciting ‘kalimas’ and what not, a show that is so farcical that it is sad. His being an American citizen has surfaced again with the allegation that he is an ‘American agent.’ Good Lord, do the worthies realise that such charges can put everyone who matters, right into the dock, including the President? There is no such thing as an American agent because for more or less the last 50 years, we all have been their agents. After 9/11, it is the proper thing to be in their camp and we are there, firmly, hanging on to Mr. Bush’s trailing conscience. Some of the members, beards or not, are well-entrenched American agents as well. The whole country is an American agent so ‘what’s the beef?’ or ‘where’s the beef?’ as Wendy Burgers asked. I am no great fan of Mr. Aziz – he has far too many Armani suits and PR firms boosting his image and prospects since he arrived from the land where a bank is suffering from incurable insomnia. The entire business of his being held in waiting as the stage is prepared for his elections and eventual swearing in as PM, has more reverse swing than Waqqar Younis and Wasim Akram ever generated in their 900 plus international wicket haul. The new speedsters should ask Gen. Musharraf to give them a few lessons. However, Mr. Aziz will, as per script, win from here or there and arrive to inspect the guard of honour and a career that will take him places till he will board a plane – not a train, and fly into Californian sunset.

For the duration that the country’s various collection of democracy-lovers is on show, expect nothing but mediocrity, drivel and nonsense to flow from their collective IQ, which is lower than our growth rate by many degrees. These may be assemblies but the variety they grow there is best left alone. Why squeeze a stone? All you get is sore fingers.