Ayaz Amir

To our west the poor and wretched have spoken in Iran and in doing so have elevated their choice, Mahmood Ahmedinejad, to the presidency. To our east the poor spoke with half a voice last year and put paid to that tawdry battle-cry “India Shining”. They had had enough of it. No danger of anything of that sort happening in Pakistan. GHQ is much too smart for that. Although greatly insistent on the popularity of the present order, no one, least of all the caudillo, is keen to put that popularity to the test. We don’t want an Iranian outcome, do we?

The prosperity this government professes to have brought about is neatly compartmentalised. The already-rich are more comfortable than ever. The middle classes are experiencing the novelty of bank credit chasing them rather than the other way round.

People unlucky enough to be caught outside these well-defined pockets of affluence have a somewhat dimmer view of the present economic miracle and what it means for them. If there are doubts on this score, why not subject the shining Pakistan story-line to something akin to the Iranian or Indian tests? It’ll prove quite a shocker. A bizarre dichotomy the country is caught in. On the one hand the insistence on huge, unprecedented popularity. On the other, a mortal fear of actually going to the people. The spectacle of the local elections is just about to unfold. Ask General Beg. He masterminded the subsequent succession, allowing Ghulam Ishaq Khan to become president while for himself he chose the role of power behind the presidential throne. At the time he thought he was playing a shrewd game. But the game didn’t last and now he is full of regret for letting power slip through his fingers. Musharraf is a luckier or a shrewder person. Not only did he seize power when it fell into his lap, he is making sure it remains there. He knows where his strength lies which is why all the constitutional arguments in the world won’t alter his determination to remain army chief. Ayub was a lonely man out of office. Yahya was pathetic. Ghulam Ishaq as president had a lust for power. Now most people in the country don’t even know where he lives in Peshawer. Is any journalist interested in interviewing him? Not that I know of. Of Beg eno-ugh said already. Leghari is a walking embarrassment.

But no one cares and certainly no one seems to learn. Each one of Pakistan’s rulers strove in his time for immortality. What actually became of them is well known: seeming colossi reduced to the status of historical footnotes. Power in the afternoon: a general in power seems strongest in the late afternoon of his rule, Ayub just prior to the 1964 presidential election, Zia before the 1985 general election. Then events, slowly but surely, started spinning out of their control. This is now the afternoon of the present dispensation, six years already behind us with nothing much to show except easy bank credit for the middle classes.

How many milestones haven’t we crossed? The regime’s seven-point agenda (where has it gone?), then “real democracy”, then the era of “enlightened moderation”.

Ayaz, a columnist for Dawn, writes for THT from Islamabad