Washing Stigmata

 Imran Khan

Benazir Bhutto’s let-off on technical grounds has left the nation stunned. It has left the people disgusted, demoralized and disillusioned and simply confirmed the fact that Pakistan’s justice system protects the robber barons. Had they access to expensive lawyers the majority of Pakistan’s prisoners too would be free on technical grounds. Everybody knows how confessions are extracted from the poor and the weak in police thanas? Just a few months earlier the Sharif family, that had developed corruption into an art form, were allowed leave and live life in Arabian Nights-like splendor, despite dozens of corruption cases against them still pending. And NAB has been doing deals with some of the biggest crooks in Pakistan: the crooks hand over a minuscule amount of their booty to the government and in return their stigmata are washed off. They keep the rest of their loot, go free and rejoin society as respectable citizens, to contest elections and loot yet more another day. 

A slavish adherence to IMF nostrums is subjecting the masses to constant price hikes, especially of the utilities, with the hackneyed assurance that today’s sufferings will give rise to a better tomorrow. Rather than stop the hemorrhaging in public sector corporations the present government too has taken to raising prices that they think is the easy route. Current policies are not only pushing the majority of the population into poverty, 80 million people earn less than Rs. 3500 per month, but also causing greater unemployment and recession. Because no one believes that there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel, we are slowly but surely moving towards a civil war.

 Politically the situation is equally depressing. By not allowing any political activity the government has frozen the status quo. How were other parties or their leadership supposed to fill the vacuum by creating an alternative to the discredited PPP and PML when they are not allowed to get their programmes across to the people? According to a Gallup survey, the reason why on 12^th October 1999, 80% of the population backed the army takeover was because they were sick of the corruption and incompetence of the PPP and PML governments and were dying for change. By freezing political activity the army government has not allowed a viable alternative to develop. Unviable alternatives, of course, are always there. If there is match fixing in cricket, you do not ban cricket; you just take out the corrupt players. Today people have lost all confidence in the present leadership and without this confidence there is no way of attracting investment. And without investment there is not going to be any economic revival.

 If Pakistan is to be saved then there is only one way left and that way is for a leadership to mobilize the people. At the same time as Pakistan was born, countries like Japan, Germany and China were in a worse situation. Yet they not only managed to pull themselves out of the crises, but also became economic superpowers. In all cases the people mobilized behind their leadership and all made collective sacrifices. The people of Pakistan too will mobilize behind a leadership that has credibility and which they trust. The people will never trust a leadership that expects sacrifices from them while living unreal lives in the style of Mughal Emperors. It is really shameful how our ruling elite shows off its extravagant Prime Minister’s and Presidential palaces, the coloniser’s Governors’ mansions, and fleets of the latest Mercedes to the same foreigners from whom they beg for money on bent knees every three months. Look at the shameless Sharif-Benazir circus which, every time it hit town, kept asking overseas Pakistanis to send their money to Pakistan, while they were busy siphoning off millions of dollars to foreign bank accounts and buying expensive properties abroad. In May 1998 there were three earth-shaking events:

 · Nuclear tests.

 · Nawaz Sharif appealing to Pakistanis not to take their dollars out.

 · Nawaz Sharif and cohorts secreting their stolen wealth out of the country in the darkness of the night.

 No wonder the public is cynical today and will not trust a leadership unless it leads by example. The only reason I succeed in collecting huge amounts for SKMTH is because I continue to be one of the biggest donors to the hospital.

 The next challenge for the leadership in mobilizing the people is to raise their self-esteem. Anyone who has played team sport will know that a far less talented team with greater self-belief will thrash a talented team with low self-esteem. Whenever nations have risen it has always been when their leadership has instilled self-belief in them. Churchill, Mao, Khomeini, Mahathir are some of the leaders who gave their people pride and self-confidence in themselves when they were passing through tough times. Those leaders who are perceived as slaves of a superpower, or even worse, of the IMF and World Bank can never do this. While other East Asian countries accepted the IMF package during the East Asian economic crisis Mahathir refused. Malaysia got out of the crisis through homegrown policies and public mobilization. How can a nation have any pride in itself when its leadership prostrates itself before other countries for alms? Remember how painful it was for every self-respecting Pakistani when they saw their Prime Minister go running to Washington to throw himself at the mercy of Clinton after Kargil? The Nawaz alternative, Benazir Bhutto, never stops sucking up to the Americans reminding them that she is the only bulwark against ‘Talibanization’ if only they would install her in power. Even the Musharraf government never understood the damage to the nation’s self-esteem when it begged President Clinton to stop over in Pakistan for five hours, as if the nation’s survival depended upon it.

 The awful fact is that none of these leaders understand that the cure to Pakistan's problems lie within the country. The battered self-esteem of the nation needs to be lifted. But first the leader must believe in himself; only then will he be able to believe in the people. Why did 98% of Pakistanis back the nuclear tests even though for three weeks our soft, materialistic and mentally enslaved elite was warning the people of the awful implications of economic sanctions on their lives? The reason is that human beings crave for dignity, self-respect and freedom. The people will stand behind a leader who stands up for their rights, not for the interests of the tiny pampered elite class, and makes them proud citizens. Jinnah lifted the Indian Muslims because he appeared as an equal to the British. A leader who is sensitive to the needs of the people does not break their backs with price hikes just to please the IMF. Instead he stands with them and leads them from the front, especially when it is time for making sacrifices. It was during the fund collection campaign for SKMTH that I realized that the people of this country are strong and capable of great sacrifices, provided they believe in the cause. The Messenger of God (PBUH), the greatest leader of all times, always led by personal example, not rhetoric. 

Apart from being credible and giving people self-esteem, the leader must do something tangible that will have an immediate impact on people’s lives. Three things will have this impact.

 Firstly, the declaration of an education emergency whereby all university graduates do a one-year national service to spread literacy in rural areas. By trimming the bloated government, retired and redundant military and civil bureaucrats should be enlisted in this education campaign. There should be one core syllabus for the entire country. English should be taught through audio-visual cassettes. Technical institutes should be opened from every rupee saved from the extravagant lifestyle of our rulers. This campaign can only succeed if the country is mobilized. Most significantly, all zakat should be diverted to giving proper education to poor children. Government schools should be upgraded and teachers given market salaries. The children who can afford should pay higher fees, while the ones who cannot, should have their fees paid from the zakat fund. It is the only way to get additional funds for education. It will also be the best investment of the Zakat funds.

 Secondly, the entire government machinery should be geared to create a conducive environment for wealth creation. In other words all impediments should be removed in the way of business and investors to earn money LEGALLY.

 · Fewer, lower and equitable taxes, with radical reforms in the collection machinery which motivates rather than coerces people to pay taxes.

 · Lower interest rates by cleaning up the banking system.

 · Remove red tape by drastically cutting down the number of government departments.

 · Frequent audits and giving exemplary punishments to those who stand in the way of the country’s prosperity.

 · Clean up government corporations with an iron hand to ensure that prices of utilities are kept down __ otherwise our exports will not remain competitive.

 · Finally, the government must kick-start the economy through massive labour intensive projects like lining of canals, farm to market roads and cleaning up of the cities.

All this can be done provided the people are behind a leadership that is not scared to take on powerful vested interests.

 Thirdly, nothing can happen without an independent and credible judiciary, as exemplified by Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew’s experience. Overseas Pakistanis who are our greatest asset will only invest when they are confident of a swift justice system that enforces contracts. Therefore we need:

 · An Independent Judicial Commission comprising respected citizens, ex-judges, prominent lawyers and members of the government and opposition parties, that not only promotes judges but also does their accountability.

 · At the grass-root level we have to revive the Panchyat and Jirga system (informal courts), whereby the respected elders of the village act as the jury and the villagers get cheap and speedy justice.

 · To ensure speedy justice, we should revert back to the Mughal system where the aggrieved were compensated, rather than the Anglo-Saxon jail system. The Mughal system is still successfully working in the tribal areas and is today the only way to give justice to the vast majority of our population, within our resource constraints.

 The need of the hour is for a leadership with flair and innovation that offers creative, resourceful and practical solutions to our problems. The time for conventional and imported cures is gone.