[Reader-list] Musharrif's Referendum: another one bites the dust

[rehan ansari]

Another One Bites The Dust
by Shandana Minhas
from www.chowk.com
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Lowering the voting age to 18 for the referendum makes
sense if you look at the speed with which General
Musharrafs latest tactics are alienating many over 21.
Most 18 year olds don’t bother following the news.
They are content to follow the lead of those they feel
are most qualified to lead the world, i.e. the bully’s
and the beautiful. But to socially challenged people
like me, barred from rolling in the alligator
wrestling ring of life by the dual constraints of self
respect and mid-term pregnancy, the news is all we
have. And the news over the last couple of weeks has
raised a few ideological obstacles to my making a
beeline for the ‘yes’ line in the voting booths come
referendum day (unless it be to drag away any 18 year
olds I happen to know).

I was one of those M enthusiasts who liked every move
of our new moderate leader. In that narrow window
post- September 11, pre referendum, General Musharrafs
‘political correctness’ made it easy to ignore
questions, to push them back down into the
subconscious with all the other debris accumulated
during a Pakistani existence. This is sometimes called
a coping mechanism. Stop thinking. Life is so much
easier if you don’t think. Ironically, it was the
wording of the referendum question itself that raised
my mental hackles and compelled the slug inside to
yell ‘Oye…just a minute!’ 

“For consolidating the local government system;
establishment of democracy; continuation of reforms;
end to sectarianism and fundamentalism; and fulfilment
of Quaid-i-Azam’s concept of Pakistan, would you like
to elect President General Pervez Musharraf as
President of Pakistan for five years?”

I’m not even going to go into the legality of the
whole exercise. I know nothing about it. But the
wording of the question…a simple ‘Would you like to
elect President General Pervez Musharraf as President
of Pakistan for five years?’ would have sufficed. Why
suggest a ‘No’ meant opposition to all of the above?
Why equate dissent with disloyalty? In world of real,
painful dichotomy, why add a false dilemma to the mix?
Hadn’t the ‘either you are with us or against us’
school of thought already caused enough suffering over
the last one year? Did we really need an addition to
the current line up of ‘asses’ of evil? 

So began another tale of disenchantment. And, like a
local hospital administrator faced with the Congo
virus, I’d like to share. Introspection is more
effective pre-stupidity.

The ‘power in the hands of the people’ initiative
sounded sweet but its quite disturbing to see the
‘hands of the people’ behaving like especially
constructed prosthetic devices with long handles for
back scratching. Commandeering public transport and
making attendance of rallies mandatory for the rank
and file doesn’t create faith in the government, it
erodes it. Nazims who have till date been pleading in
vain for an infusion of funds into silly things like
health, education and waste management infrastructure
have suddenly found the pockets of the federal
government are miraculously deep when it comes to
expenditure on M’s rallies. Nazims objecting to the
arbitrary movement of people and funds on a marionette
string have found the pockets of the federal
government to be empty, concrete lined and populated
by an army of deaf mutes with doctorates in grudge
bearing. 

Some would say the press has never been freer but
respect and disdain can be synonymous. Money has been
poured into a cosmetic overhaul of state television
but a tyrannosaurus rex with lipstick is still a
tyrannosaurus rex. Presswalas have been castigated for
their ‘myopic’ rendering of the facts; intimidation
tactics have ranged from the rhetorical to the
physical. Journalists and columnists have been asked
to refrain from writing about things ‘of which they
have no knowledge.’ Do they want to drive an entire
profession out of business? 

The ‘woman’ angle promoted by a smart line in reform
and increase in representation seems to be just a line
when faced with the fact that an administration
willing to mobilize millions in expenditure and human
resources for the consolidation of power at the drop
of a hat has yet to do the same in a drive against
honor killing or laws and mechanisms that oppress and
punish women and minorities. Politicians will be
arrested upon reentry but murderers, wife beaters and
rapists can still walk free. 

The stink of the previous government’s verbal diarrhea
still covers the land and every day there is another
barrage of dung patties at the (supposed) enemies of
the state. And all that’s on offer is repetitive old
hat set against a backdrop of all too familiar lota
faces and people who have no business at political
rallies. The articulate sincerity apparent from
General Musharraf's earlier speeches seems more
ominous now; comments like “I am aware that you have
never disappointed me in the past and will not let me
down in future” and “we will make up our own minds and
then your views will be invited” seem more ‘general to
his troops’ then ‘servant of the people’. And who is
this mysterious ‘We’ anyway? Is it M and I? Him and
George? Gorillas in the mist? The boys in khaki?

After months of appearing bathed in a gentle golden
backlight (like a little sting ray from heaven) in the
run up to the referendum the General’s chosen coterie
and whole hearted embrace of political mannerisms and
actions is doing a lot of damage to the store of
goodwill he had accumulated amongst the ‘silent
majority’. Most still believe he is a good person but
wonder if he is a good judge of character (one man
does not a government make). It is getting harder to
identify how what he stands for is any different from
the politicians he says are wholly and solely
responsible for all of the Pakistani peoples
suffering. 

The way he divisions blame is another issue. Either he
is delusional (could be caused by combination of pagri
cutting of circulation to his head and hyena advisors
sniffing around his heels) or he thinks the silent
majority has a collective IQ of 30. If he is so
concerned about the sins of ex-MNA’ and MPA’s what is
he doing with various Chaudrys and Tariq Aziz? If he
is so concerned with extremism why have so many
activists of religious organizations been quietly
released? How many army men has NAB prosecuted? Can
anyone honestly discount the role of the military in
bringing us to the point of intellectual and cultural
retardation? What ‘checks and balances’ does the
General have in mind for his king makers? Where is the
military section of his ‘narration of injustice’? Can
you dive into ‘root causes’ and pretend there is no
elephant behind the light pole? 

Will I have answers to these questions come referendum
morning? Probably not. And according to yesterday’s
paper, I might not need them. President Musharraf told
a news conference on April 16th he had yet to decide
whether to step down in case he did not get himself
elected in the referendum. How reassuring it is to
know the bounty of the ‘economic revival’ is being
utilized for something other than the whimsical.

If your opinion has no bearing on the result, should
you bother to vote at all?

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