Pakistan: What Is Said Will Not Stand Up To Historical Scrutiny

by Mian Hameed     12 October 2022

Setting aside freedom of speech, a few well-respected journalists have taken a viewpoint I find repugnant. What they have argued is a character thing to me. They have; now I oscillate my voice of conscience.

I expose a sham in their ‘genius’ that showcases the journalistic embodiment of Pakistan. It is their homemade sham—a captain leading his dance – I don’t want to dance “with the Moonlit Knight.” They have just sold Pakistan by the pound. Actually, this was said for, “Selling England by the Pound” in Genesis; its intro with lyrics also echoes, “Can you tell me where my country lies?”

The country lies amongst the filth. The old filth is Bajwa, the Pakistan Army Chief, and his institution casting his shadow. The new filth is the emerging journalist born so right, but when they attempt to float their coin repugnant to the core, in their demise I must remind my readers, “A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” These are the famous words of the first Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

I can show no elasticity, though I am mindful that elasticity is a quality of chief greatness.  Elasticity, I cannot afford, for these two narratives, I share next, took place within the same week. I do not see it as a coincidence—my logic. I see it as someone has made a swaying approach—my presumption.

A week back, a popular journalist spoke of the establishment (Bajwa and the trio)  that the establishment must stand in support of the government. He said that the establishment stood in support of Imran Khan’s government; then he commits an unacceptable sin from his logic and stated that now the establishment by design [a constitutional mandate] has to support the new government. Affareen (metaphoric—way to go)! He just ate his country, eating her without a sound. Apparently, the vlog is removed—ridiculed?

How can he claim the aforesaid logical catastrophe when he himself sticks by the narrative that the establishment was integral in bringing a regime change (the ouster of Khan’s government) and the establishment is the lynchpin in imposing upon the decent Pakistanis, a Federal Cabinet made up of 66-percent criminals out on bail. Let alone the charges of sedition and treachery on Bajwa lurking, he is behind all the pardons extended to the same corrupt polity.

(I find the country in succinct cohesion; they find these traitors are traditionally hailed by those they are subservient to. For instance, “Bajwa becomes first Pakistani to represent Queen at Military Academy Sandhurst,” U.K. Look at the contrast, a man in calamity disgrace is representing the late Queen of U.K. Now the same filth I hear is collecting his second Honor Cordon at the Pentagon.)

Here enters the second respected journalist, but he too took a plunge of conscience. He was working for hand in glove with the views as that of the first journalist I spoke of. Just like the first journalist, the second one too slips in a repugnant spin at the end of his vlog to soften the shamed image of the establishment. I translate his viewpoint into three parts.

Part I—” There is a sociologist, Charles Tilly, [who is of the view that] in the evolution process of democracy, it is necessary to have a hegemon. And it is necessary for a hegemon or a sovereign to exist in the people’s struggle for human rights. Because of the sovereign is in control, the people against the sovereign can negotiate for their rights. [Part II]—The fact that the Pakistani military establishment is in control of Pakistan, it is not a negative aspect. It is a positive aspect. No one has updated my software! It is a positive idea. Before this sovereign, the people can make the sovereign understand and plead their case. What all the sovereign in Pakistan has done; has done within limits. Ultimately, Pakistan’s interest is dear to the sovereign. [Part III]— If there is no sovereign,  you will have chaos. If there is no sovereign, then what will happen in KPK, Sindh, and Baluchistan?”

Let me amuse the Humor first, “No one has updated my software,” he said. It is in reference to the ISI usually paying a visit to ensure a change in one’s mindset! What the journalist in the vlog is doing is reciprocating pleading with the sovereign that he can live off their power and the powerful can live off his support. Simply put, just as the first journalist, in the wake of a possible deal between Khan and the establishment, all can be forgiven I suppose. His views are a compromise of a good character.

Part I, the logic, from hegemon to democracy and then to secure the people’s rights; this sequence is a palatable promotion of a hegemon, provided the hegemon has a sliver of correct sense, integrity, and a compass facing the North. He could have easily taken several steps away from his truth to tell the other truth, to gives us the whole truth. That is, small steps into, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” Cambridge University Press 1985, too is an essay by Charles Tilly, where the States’ “Protection rackets represent organized crime […]  – quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy.” This latter read could have made the matters worse for this journalist to find positivity in his hatched intellectual coup.

There is a distinction between the Pakistan Army making enormous sacrifices for the country and the commercialized establishment that shares no bone with a decent soldier that subordinates this cabal, which “produces both the danger and, at a price.” –Tilly.

Speaking of the price, in prayers, each and every Pakistani is entitled to relief under a class action lawsuit against the personal assets of the current establishment for plunging the country through financial losses in billions and punitive damages from emotional stress. The current establishment just gave National Reconciliation Order (NRO) — NRO-2 to the corrupt polity.

Prior to Bajwa’s price tag, there was Musharraf’s NRO-1, to pardon the convicted polity. Musharraf exposed the country to other costs as well. A price tag from the U.S. War on Terror. Musharraf orchestrated a preconceived terrorism plan in the Swat Valley against the KPK’s governor’s sound advice not to introduce Sharia Law to the Valley, which began the series of Swat Operations starting around 2007. All was planned, resulting in the development of an army garrison in the Swat valley. Today, terrorism in Swat has returned just as before. Federal Defense Minister Khwaja Asif, a lackey of the establishment said terrorism is a provincial issue—imagine. I can carry on with examples for the reader to catch my drift.

The price—in bulk, the Pakistani establishment (the commercialized generals) are incompetent too. For instance, take Bajwa’s incompetence. History may very well place the biggest strategic miscalculation of the century on Bajwa – Not comprehending the ‘battlefield.’ That is, Khan’s emerging populous support phenomenon in an establishment planned regime change operation. To sure up my incompetence charge, let me part with another example.

During the 1971 War, a two-star general in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, vouched that there was no possibility of an Indian formation tank attack in the Rangpur sector. His Jeep was ambushed by the very Indian tanks! Rolled the jeep over, he fled and gained the protection of a Bengali family for two days and resurfaced.

When asked about the possibility of a tank assault by the commander of the 1965 War of the Rangpur sector in East Pakistan, the commander said, the general of the 1971 War had no understanding of the battle filed. The commander from the 1965 War fearing an imminent lightning-speed tank assault, had dug an anti-tank ditch in record time with the help of the natives. Even a blind in the business of warfare could not have missed a previously dug 13-kilometer-long anti-tank ditch.

Part II is quite problematic. The establishment in control can be looked at as a positive force as long as the polity was a security threat to the existence of Pakistan.  Excluding Khan’s government, the recent democracies have been a security threat.

Today, the establishment has engulfed the country with a security threat—the majority of Pakistanis hold this view. Moody’s has cut Pakistan’s financial sovereign ratings from B3 to Caa1, a financial risk after landing Pakistan in “junk territory” has maximized the security threat. Thus, the journalist claiming, “Pakistan’s interest is dear to the sovereign” is a repugnant illusion.

He adds, the  establishment “has done it within limits.” Is he speaking of crippling the country financially or decapitating humanity within limits? Laughable on both counts. The establishment’s regime change has guillotined Pakistan’s financial base into bankruptcy. As for humanity, I am imagining this journalist possessing a relatively greater threshold to indignity and body pain than electrocuting the private parts of a stripped-naked Khan’s aid, Dr. Shahbaz Gill. In essence, this journalist has extended the establishment of the grounds to NRO-3.

Part III is a double edge sword. The repulsive shadow of the current establishment needs no explanation. The former sovereign (one man) had created more than chaos by owning Bush’s War on Terror by aiding in destabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is just one set of examples. True, the sovereigns in the past have done a good job in preventing the balkanization of Pakistan, for which the taxpayer weighs her army in glitter and gold.

I fail to understand any positivity in an establishment with a defunct character and capabilities that have devastated the country. Has failed to create social good or institutions. Not sure what the “educated classes” at times comprehend to make irresponsible statements.

This journalist with all his “infirmities and depravation” should have been capable of great things, but he chose self-promotion by nurturing the establishment. Naturally, my opening the floodgates of an intellectual assault is means to show my ire and his error. The following is also from his well-thought sociologist, Charles Tilly, which squarely applies to the establishment he chose to rescue.

Shaped from Tilly’s 1985 edited version position paper, Bajwa’s rule as an authoritative racketeer has monopolized concentrated means of violence and is producing and controlling violence. However, the preview of Bajwa’s violence is not caped by Bajwa, but it is curbed by Khan’s reluctance to see his people get hurt.

The establishment has become the “terrestrial lords” providing “protection  to freebooters” (Imported Government.) Now they have their own “levy troops”—police and the compromised officials in key places. All is documented in Tilly’s essay to bring awareness to this journalist. This journalist mustering courage to self-serve has plunged the wishes of 220 million Pakistanis into an abyss.

This journalist, to give greater meaning to the idea that he has embarked upon, flaunts his message by associating Tilly’s paper he read at his alma mater, with his scholastic roots in London. It is his choice. However, schools are influenced by what to teach, and stamping his message by way of name-dropping to elevate his message per se has not dampened his repugnancy in self-betterment.

The reality is, certain schools with prestigious names with greater accomplishments do have a history of impacting society, not in a nicer fashion. Flashing names usually go well with promoting the intellectual climate of orthodoxy. In my scholarship, Manipulation of the Mind: Our Children and Our Policy at Peril, my research dating back to the 1800s show that quite a few good schools and a system in the United States have been detrimental to the American way of life and humanity.

The establishment has violated the Constitution, but Khan has not. Imran Khan’s maverick struggle is to uphold humanity. Khan benefits from his late-life learning struggle. He has a magnanimous quality. Khan has made Pakistanis aware that the people are the owners of the Constitution and have made the people realize that they now must participate in defending it.