Of follies and forgiveness

A massive deployment of rangers and army personnel has taken place all over the twin cities. It seems like Nawaz Sharif is coming all armed with nuclear bombs or is a serious security risk, who cannot be handled in the midst of a thousand or so passionate supporters and needs for his sake and his supporters’, a reception of armed men in a city under siege. If he is arrested, that will serve his reputation and worsen that of the government; a win-win situation that is for Nawaz Sharif. And then they say they have nothing to fear from the person of Nawaz Sharif. Then why not let the world see for itself what he really got?

Why are we bent on making heroes out of people through the treatment meted out to them? “Event based heroes” as Talat Hussein put it. Villains of Pakistani politics used to turn into hailed leaders overnight when their governments were sacked, with their corruption cases a thing of the past. Zardari became a hero for languishing in jails for such a long time without proper court proceedings, Javed Hashmi for being called a traitor. The MMA won its seats in N.W.F.P and may still sweep the polls despite its inefficient governance only because of the situation created in the tribal areas due to our involvement in the “War on Terror”. Everyone seems to have forgotten the charges brought against the Chief Justice which agreed based on malafide intentions, must have had some authenticity behind them in actuality, just because he was victimized by Musharraf and he stood up to him. There were genuine corruption issues against him which even the lawyers who supported him throughout the movement used to mention behind closed doors. The nature of the movement has pushed those cases to the back burner. Now, Nawaz Sharif’s rising popularity shows little signs of plummeting despite the Saudi intelligence chief and Saad Hariri’s literally insulting press conference, despite it being clear that Nawaz Sharif willingly left the country, despite their being evidence of the existence of a deal, only because he has refused to budge from his position on Musharraf. His willingness to languish in jails in Pakistan for the “national interest” and for the 160 million people of Pakistan are just hollow statements. Why now and not then when he was sentenced to life imprisonment because obviously now he sees a very short incarceration.

But that’s probably our criterion for heroes. Pakistani people are leader-thirsty and are forced to forgive every time, worse without having being offered any apologies. It is always a question of bad or worse, or worse, worse and worst. Time for new faces-those who at least ask for forgiveness. Is the nation for it?