Pakistan is caught in a fast spinning centrifuge, where hopefully the good is being separated from the bad
Customary spontaneity makes me wish everyone a Happy New Year. My prayer is that humankind has a less bad new year than the last has been. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
If you think that I’m going to say something about General Pervez Musharraf’s illness, you’re in for a disappointment. I know as much as you do. If I knew different I wouldn’t tell, because I don’t want to preempt the doctors. I pray for his health. Anyway, all those clairvoyants and shamans who make predictions galore with the confidence only charlatans can have didn’t predict this one, so let’s stop wasting time listening to them and reading their gobbledygook. More interesting is the fact brought to our attention by Dr. Mervyn Hosein in a letter to the editor that the 2014 calendar is identical to the 1947 calendar when India broke, Pakistan was made, millions were killed and the greatest migration in human history took place. Here’s hoping that countries are not broken this year too, that killings decrease and forced migrations don’t happen. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
I told you last week that God enjoins us not to hate anyone so much that we cannot do them justice. God judges us not so much for our deeds but more importantly for our intentions behind those deeds. This is what humankind must understand. You might do something that looks very good on the face of it, but if your intention is selfish, like vengefulness, faking democracy, making a name for yourself as a great philanthropist, or to please a government or to book yourself a place in Heaven, the good your deed would have done you is compromised. You cannot fool God. He knows best. He knows what is in everyone’s hearts, their intentions.
Apart from revenge and castrating the army, another intention of this government behind trying Musharraf for treason is to create the mirage of democracy and an independent judiciary. But mirages disappear very fast and all you end up with is a vaster and more desolate wilderness. The only way is to create realities, not illusions, by letting democracy operate democratically and justice be done justly.
How are our civilian governments any different from dictators who try and create the illusion of democracy? Or is Nawaz Sharif another of our dictators in civilian garb running government like a family fief, trying to commit patricide by killing his political nursery in which he was seeded and nourished in order to fake a democratic persona? Does he really believe in due process? If he really does, why does he not try Musharraf for the whole thing from October 12, 1999 to November 3, 2007 and not just for the latter date? The inescapable conclusion is that he is trying to protect certain important players, himself and the recently retired chief justice particularly. There are no holy cows in justice. God knows, and God knows best. As they say, never judge a man till you see his end.
