Mafiosi Democracy - La Cosa Nostra in Pakistan

Mafiosi Democracy - La Cosa Nostra in Pakistan

What is “La Cosa Nostra”? In Italian language it simply means, “ Our own thing”. To the rest of the world it means Mafia. And what is a Mafia? It means a syndicate or gang of criminals especially ones who are particularly ruthless and with absolutely no regard for ethics and law. Naked and raw power mixed with a lot of money which transcends all human attributes. All Mafias have certain common characteristics: A kind of patriarchal chain of command; a hereditary or semi hereditary power structure with its associated power struggles; an iron clad system of abject loyalty by the subordinate members defined by an oath of the type, “ I enter the organization living and leave it dead”; last, but not the least, a racial tinge.

Now let us give a look to three of the major political parties in Pakistan that is PPP, PML(N) and PML(Q). A typical political party in Pakistan has a patriarch and an heir apparent which in most cases is a blood relation of the former. We have combinations like Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in PPP, or Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif in PML(N),  and Chaudry Shujaat, Chaudry Pervez Elahi and Moonas Elahi in PML(Q). The Heads of these three parties demand absolute loyalty from their subordinate members. Just look what happened to Naheed Khan, Senator Envar Baig and now that is going to happen to Zulfikar Mirza. Only Jahangir Badars, Farhatulllah Babars, Babar Awans and Farzana Rajas survive in the party. In the other two parties, Javed Hashmi, Kashmala Tariq and Marvi Memon are frowned upon as disloyal mavericks. If these people were to leave their parties even for some genuine reason, they would become politically dead. And in case of MQM might even become physically dead. Remember Dr. Imran Farooq.

And now coming over to the racist tendency. People’s Party openly waives the Sindh Card. All key and core decision making members of this party are Sindhies. Punjabies, Pathans and Balochies have been added only as a garnishing with no role in decision making. Similarly, in PML(N) all important posts are manned by Kashmiris such as Butts, Dars and Khwajas. PML(Q) is a clan of Jatts and opportunists of mainly central Punjab linked by virtue of marriages of convenience. ANP and MQM are manifest racist parties with professed racist agendas.

From the foregoing, it is amply clear that what many are not tired of calling a democratic rule in Pakistan is in effect a Mafia rule.

Unfortunately this situation has no room for improvement; rather, there is every chance of further deterioration. Most people in Pakistan think and behave on ethnic or racial lines. This tendency is increasing alarmingly. Pride in ones race is very common. Most of the names now end with a tribal identity. Inter racial marriages are discouraged and may lead to bloody tribal feuds. With illiteracy almost at 80 percent (do not give a damn to the official figures on literacy, every one in world knows how they are fudged up here),  tendency towards racism is on the rise. An ethnic war is already going on in Karachi. Demand for Sereiki province, though some what genuine, is also a race related demand. Fractures are also appearing in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa in response to this very racist name of that province. Naturally, these fractures are bound to give birth to some more Mafias in our body politic.

Genocide in Balochistan and Sindh, and murders of Minister Kamran Michael and Salman Taseer give a clear verdict that the Civil Society in Pakistan has been defeated by the dark forces of ethnicity and obscurantism.

Space for democracy and enlightenment is fast shrinking in Pakistan.

Pakistan is fast degenerating into a medieval tribal society but sans tribal ethics, but equipped with modern weapons and Mafia ruthlessness. 

Fayyaz Mahmood.

The Limitations of Democracy

The limitations of Democracy

Right from the time of Plato, political scientists have been writing about democracy. In our country democracy is being proclaimed as some kind of universal panacea. But what we are witnessing right now is a steady, all encompassing decline in our society. Fissures in the body politic are appearing with each passing day to the extent that there is a growing general underlying fear that the country is heading towards disintegration. There is a general lack of confidence in the organs of the state and their functions. But we do have a democratically elected government. What is the problem with us?

The beauty of the democracy lies in its system of feed back. In a democratic set up, disorganized and random public opinion is articulated and organized by the media. The media feeds this organized opinion to the decision makers. This circle is what we call feed back. This feed back provides the rulers and decision makers the information to make mid course corrections to their policies for maximum benefit of the public. This is how a democratic set up sails on an even keel. Fortunately, this arrangement is very much established in our country. But why is it not giving the desired results? What has happened to our democracy, wherein lies our failure, and is there any remedy?

As far as our democratic set up is concerned, despite a poorly framed constitution stuffed with self serving clauses, we are more or less a standard democracy. We have such democratic set ups all around us and they are not only working satisfactorily but are also delivering fruits of democracy to their people. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are two examples in our neighborhood. What has happened in our case?

The only difference between Pakistan and the above mentioned countries is that of the nature of population. Population of Bangladesh is almost homogenous. That is one important condition for the flourishing of democratic set up in that country. Sri Lanka, just like us, has ethnic groups. But despite that, its democratic set up is well established earning respect from advanced nations. The main reason behind this appears to be the equality with which different ethnic groups are treated by the state.  Another important feature common to both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is the high level of literacy of their populations.

Coming over to Pakistan, ethnic divisions in the population at the time of inception of the country were quite distinct. But they were swamped by the excitement of the birth of a new country and the new nation. The leadership at that time, which was predominantly feudal,  could not build on this initial fervor, rather it worked to strengthen its stranglehold on the masses. The new born country’s backward slide started when in 1953 the law about compulsory education to all citizens, which was enacted by the Colonial Rulers, was abolished.  This was first deliberate effort to keep the masses illiterate regardless of their ethnic affiliation. The object was to gain a vice like grip on masses in order to perpetuate the rule of the feudal.

The first ones to sense this game were the Bengalis of the then East Pakistan. Even at the time of birth of Pakistan, Bengalis of the then East Pakistan were more homogeneous, literate and organized. They reacted sharply when Quaid-e-Azam declared Urdu as single language of Pakistan. It was a critical mistake by Quaid-e-Azam which sowed the seeds of secession of East Pakistan and birth of Bangladesh. The last and final mistake was feudal lord Bhutto’s non acceptance of election results of 1970.

After Bangladesh debacle, the feudal lords of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan continued their policy of dominating the masses. Constitution of 1973 is a document which strengthens the feudal grip on masses. Even after 38 years of its inception and after umpteen amendments, it is a defective document which promises the masses nothing. In no way does it bridle the power of the feudal. Rather, it puts a cross over the whole democratic system by empowering the unelected party chief to disqualify any elected member of the Parliament whimsically and arbitrarily.  It is not an accident that the present Parliament is a horde of morons. The Constitution deliberately designs it like that. 

The first effect of feudal stranglehold on the masses resulted in the dismemberment of country in 1971. Now a days we are witnessing further effects of this stranglehold. The most profound effect of this feudal dominance is that our nation’s mass literacy rate is steadily going down. This is not only increasing the religious intolerance but also the ethnic intolerance. A stage has now reached that all four provinces of the country are teeming with illiterate population, and  the people of one province feel that they have nothing in common with the people of the other provinces. This mindset now seems to be seeping down to district level. Perceptible cracks are appearing   in the body politic of the country. All this is happening in a country which vehemently claims itself to be a democracy.

In a true democratic set up, leaders or the system train their masses to live in a democracy. The prime condition for this is universal education. In a true democratic system the education of masses is one most important activity of the State. A democratic set up simply cannot work without educated masses.

I remember reading a book that I borrowed from United States Information Service (USIS). This book was about nuclear waste produced by nuclear power reactors which are used for generating electricity.  The book was published by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and unlike other American books, carried a nominal price. While the small book was full of technical information, it was written in very simple language. But the most important sentence was written in the introduction of the book, and I quote the same,

 “This book has been written to provide correct and up to date information to the general public about the problem of nuclear waste produced by the large number of nuclear power stations generating electricity in the U.S., and the methods of disposal of this waste. This book clearly discusses the risks and hazards involved in the generation of electricity from nuclear energy and the advantages of nuclear energy. This book is not an attempt to convince the general public about the use of nuclear energy. It is rather an attempt to educate general public about nuclear energy so that they can decide for themselves whether they want to have nuclear energy despite its risks and hazards or they consider the alternatives more safe. The general public can then vote according to their ideas.”      

Actually, this is the spirit of a democratic set up. First, it educates the people about a problem and then asks them to vote on the matter. This example clearly demonstrates the role of education in a democracy. A democracy simply cannot work without mass education. This is also the limitation of democracy. This is the real malady from which our democratic system suffers, not by accident, but rather by design.

With Pakistan’s literacy rate steadily going down, the democracy is also weakening. Illiterate people also suffer from lack of confidence, and consequently become the prey of the obscurantist. To the great misfortune of our people, most of the feudal lords also double as spiritual leaders. A cursory look at the parliamentary membership will reveal that barring a few,  most of the parliamentarians are, in addition to being big land lords, are Peers, Gaddi Nasheens or otherwise spiritual leaders of their constituency. All the time in our county we have conferences about Spiritualism and Soophism with zero impact on the well being of the people. In fact, these activities blunt even the meager desire the people have for modern education. I have talked to many illiterate people and was very much perturbed to discover that they had little or no desire for modern education.

With illiteracy on the rise, Pakistani democracy is in decline. As the time passes there will more illiterate people around with greater grip of religio-feudals on them. Thus Pakistani democracy is bound to slide more and more toward feudo-theocratic dictatorship with each general election in this country.

Democracy is not absolute in its character. Contrary to general impression in our country, it cannot improve every kind of people under all circumstances. Democracy requires certain conditions to work for the well being of a people. In most of the successful democracies, these conditions were created by their visionary leaders having an eye on the future and no pockets to their garments. Unfortunately for Pakistan, this has not happened and there is no chance of it ever happening in foreseeable future. Pakistani democracy is expected to degrade into a feudo-theocratic dictatorship in the long run.

After reading this blog some would complain that I acted as a doomsday prophet and did not offer any remedy. My blog points to the disease. Remedies are adopted by wise people who are conscious and care about themselves and their future. Have you ever seen an ox munching aspirin tablets?    

Fayyaz Mahmood

   

Einstein and Pakistan

EINSTEIN AND PAKISTAN

My romance with Physics started when I was in class 8 back in 1964. At that time, United States of America was thoroughly terrified by the rising Soviet Power. In order to save itself from the Communist upsurge it clutched at every straw in the mighty turbulent ocean of world events. And one of these straws was Pakistan. The panicky Americans thought that this fledging Islamic Republic could be made into a great bulwark against Communism. So they showered all kinds of goodies on Pakistan. Among these goodies was a toy nuclear reactor that still works near Islamabad. In those very days of ardent love, U.S. tried to educate the people of Pakistan about Nuclear Science. So, in 1964, a grand Nuclear Exhibition was set up at a ground on the back of Punjab Assembly Chambers to demonstrate peaceful uses of Nuclear Science. In those days of Communist fear, Americans were very sincere with their junior partners. There were no gun totting trigger happy Raymond Davis’s roaming around in Lahore with license to kill. So, this Nuclear Exhibition was a symbol of their sincerity. Imagine huge burly nuclear scientists from the United States of America painstaking explaining the details of nuclear fission chain reaction to pajama and bathroom slipper clad little brownie street urchins of Gawalmandi, Lahore like myself! Yes, Americans were great in those days. They at least inspired me, then a back street boy of Lahore, to study Physics. I did not become a great nuclear physicist with three Ph.D.’s but I did enjoy a long wonderful career as a Physics Teacher. Some of my students have become Ph.D.’s and are heading eminent institutions in Pakistan.

When we talk of Physics we must remember a very undisciplined, very unruly and a good for nothing teacher of Physics, I mean Albert Einstein. According to his biographers, Michael White and John Gribbin,  Einstein used to tutor two students. Both students failed miserably and poor Einstein lost his job. Einstein had a problem, he was very inimical to discipline and authority. While everyone at the Swiss Institute of Technology used to address the Principal as Honorable Principal, Einstein would call him by name, Mr. Weber. Deeply offended by his motherland’s autocratic government and its rising militarism, he relinquished his German citizenship by paying a special relinquishment fee and became a Swiss citizen. He was a person who simply could not behave with a standard behavior.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, this unruly guy started dabbling with Physics. He just scraped through the examinations. After completing education in a dubious way, his first two attempts at writing scientific papers were utter failures. Then this young man did what he was good at, that is, breaking the rules.

Start of twentieth century was a time of turmoil for Physics. Eminent Physicists of that time could not explain certain observations using laws of physics known at that time. At that time it was thought that mass and length of a body, and the time taken by an event are constant for all observers but the speed of light, which is a wave, depends on the medium.      

Enter Einstein, with one stroke of his pen, he inverted everything. He assumed that the speed of light is a constant for all observers but mass and length of a body and the time taken by an event may be different for different observers. As fortune favors fools, with this single stroke of his pen he was not only able to explain all the observations hitherto  unexplained by eminent scientists of the era, but also got a bonus in form of mass-energy relation, E = mc² . His idea of inverting the whole Physics was so bizarre that the Nobel Committee did not dare to confer on him the Noble Prize. He was awarded the Noble Prize after many years in 1925 on a very small contribution to Physics, the Photoelectric effect. At that time, implications of the relation E=mc² were not clear even to Einstein. In 1911, when Einstein was visiting Prague an unknown person had an angry argument with Einstein blaming him of creating a formula for devastating the whole world. Einstein, at that time not fully knowing the significance of his discovery, was very much upset by this incident.

Now, coming over to Pakistan, the Sindhies, the Balochies, the Punjabies and the Pakhtoons of Pakistan are undisciplined and unruly like Einstein, they detest authority just like him. But unfortunately, they are very much oppressed by authoritarian rule created by none else but by themselves. This they have done because unlike Einstein, they are not educated in Switzerland. In fact, they have not been educated at all. The doctrinaire and obscurantist education some of them do get makes them shiver before shadows. They cannot imagine new things, what to speak of imagining like Einstein and turning the whole universe upside down.

 At present, Pakistan is also like Physics of 1900, confused and uncertain, awaiting a breakthrough. And like Physics of 1900, a breakthrough the Nuclear Pakistan of 2012 must have.

I daily buy a newspaper for Rs. 15. I read most of the articles in it. What are these articles? They are lamentations about the present state of the country written mostly by ex bureaucrats as if offering explanations of their sins. Some articles are written by Economic Experts full of should, should, and should and would, would, and would. One thing common to all these articles is that no one in authority reads these articles because everyone in authority is busy raking in the money. The ordinary people do not read these articles as they have no money to buy the expensive newspaper and have no time to read it. People like myself who do afford the luxury of reading these articles have zero impact on society. It is we, the English readers, and purveyors of a revolution in Pakistan, who are the most marginalized people in this society.

As I discussed earlier, revolution is not in our genes. But we are unruly and undisciplined like Einstein. Let people of Pakistan too, behave as Einstein; just invert everything next time when they get the chance to vote. People must not vote for a person or the party that has been elected previously in a constituency. Let them do it just without any reason. Just do it for the sake of doing it. Let people attach no expectation to this deed. Like Ram Krishen said to Arjun in the battle field of Krukshetera, “ It is the expectation of their deeds that makes men miserable”. Let them just forget everything like Roti, Kapra and Makaan or even Heaven or Hell.

People must vote for some Muktaran Mai instead of some favourite, incumbent, dynastic  feudal lord or reverent Peer. Surely, Mukhtaran Mai is not going to get them any benefit. But like Einstein just do it and see what happens. Just like young Einstein, our people too, have nothing to lose, and may perhaps hit something like E=mc²!

I started writing this blog in 14 th of March, which was the birthday of Albert Einstein. I am ending this blog on 23 rd of March which is a sort of birthday of Pakistan.

DARWIN AND PAKISTAN

DARWIN AND PAKISTAN

A few years ago, I had the chance to read Darwin’s book , “The Origin of Species through Natural Selection”. Darwin was a great scientist, a very consistent worker and a thorough researcher. However, his book was not an easy reading. Darwin wrote things in a roundabout way, perhaps his research demanded that. In comparison Barak Obama in his “Audacity of Hope” is very readable. Now what I gathered from Darwin’s rather intractable writing is that there can be two ways in which species develop. The first method is Natural Selection which has been going on for millions of years and takes place all the time in nature and which makes a loin what it is. The other is the Artificial Selection which we human beings have imposed on ourselves and our domestic animals for the sake of economics, aesthetics and lastly politics. It is this mode that has made a buffalo a stupid, defenseless animal entirely dependent on human beings but with a huge disproportionate udder entirely dedicated to the production of milk for the economic benefit of human beings. The same goes for the beautiful flowers and fruits that are produced for enjoyment. Unwittingly, this process has been used in politics with very far reaching implications. Politics has caused wars and wars. In battles almost invariably one side prevails over the other. The defeated side loses brave men and only coward and slave minded survive. Therefore, according to Darwin’s hypothesis, in every battle, the vanquished side becomes richer in weak and slave genes. The more a tribe or a specie of human beings gets defeated the more slavish genes predominate in it.

Now the area of Indus basin which now forms the most of Pakistan, has been regularly invaded since time immemorial by Arians, Greeks, Mongols, and others. Every time brave men of this region were lost, but the coward  and the weak survived. In this way the gene pool of this region became richer in the weak and slavish genes. The extent of weakness of the genes can be judged from the fact that at the time of independence, all of United Subcontinent’s 170 million people were slaves of only about 17000 white men! Now, compare this to South Africa. The black Africans were so ferocious that in order to control two Africans one white man was needed. For this reason there are 30% whites as against 70% blacks in South Africa.

Now this is what I would call the Political Artificial Selection. Systematic decimation of strong ferocious genes in wars and occupations in this region which is now Pakistan, has produced “slaves” among human beings. People of our region are weak both physically as well mentally. I would not be very much off the mark if I claim that people of Pakistan have an Intelligence Quotient less than the world average. This amply reflects through our National Literacy Rate.

Having said this, what are the symptoms of this trauma? The greatest symptom of this centuries old trauma is the obedience. People of our country pay unquestioned obedience to religious and semi religious entities like Mullahs and Peers. They are serfs to big landlords. Even our political Parties exhibit this slavery while all the time pandering about Democracy. All five major Political Parties are headed by unelected dynastic strong men, while the lower cadres act as their serfs, sycophants or unpaid employees. Last but not the least, our Constitution, which is perhaps the most defective document in the history of Political Science, condones this slavery via 18^th Amendment. It gives the dynastic unelected strongman precedence over the elected representatives. The strongman can even de-seat an elected Prime Minister if he so desires. And this was supposed to be a consensus amendment. Consensus on sycophancy!

With this genetic trauma, what future holds for us in Pakistan. Here in Pakistan, a female cat has the liberty to mate with the strongest tom cat. But the women of our country do not have the privilege to marry the best person they like on merits. They are doomed to marry their mostly unsuited and quite often physically and mentally unfit cousins. This “captive sex” and the resulting inbreeding, is reinforcing the weakening of our genes. Pakistan is fast becoming country of mentally retarded and diabetic people. Surely, a sick Nation with slavish leaders is not going to fare well in the comity of Nations. Even now the competitiveness of our people in diverse fields ranging from business to sports is quite low among the nations of the world. With a poor genetic pool, Pakistan has a precarious future.

The recent uprisings in middle eastern counties have given rise to the speculations about a similar uprising and a possible popular revolution in Pakistan. In view of foregoing, the possibility of popular revolution in Pakistan is almost zero. Poor genetic constitution of our people has made them fatalists. Almost all of our people are resigned to their fate and have not much energy to create a change. A very wrong interpretation of our religion by the religious elite in collusion with the ruling clique has given a boost to this fatalism. “Religion is the opiate of masses”, this saying of the communist era is most appropriate for Pakistan. 

Both old and recent history of the world suggests that revolutions have always been created by people who have been ferocious warriors. The French have a long history of wars and conquests. Iranians, at the height of their power, had conquered and destroyed Athens. What is now Tunis was Carthage in the dark ages. They too, had conquered Roman Empire once under the leadership of Hannibal. But no Pathan, Punjabi, Sindhi or Balochi has ever set foot on any foreign land as a conqueror. We have always gone to other lands as slaves and workers and this continues till now. Our people do not have ferocious conqueror genes. If they ever had, they have long been attenuated by political artificial gene selection.

This is a very disturbing picture of our region. Can this genetic trauma be healed? Obviously, an injury that has been inflicted over the millenia is not going to heal in days. So there is no short term solution to this genetic malady. The only solution is the long term solution. That too, is again offered by none other than the often ridiculed scientist, that is Darwin. This injury can again be healed by what was termed by Darwin as the Natural Selection. Survival of the fittest, in common words. For a country this means implementation of true and strict merit in all walks of life. True justice is natural justice. For our survival as a self sufficient, honorable and decent people, we shall have to swallow this bitter pill offered by Charles Darwin.