Pakistan’s reverse engineering
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There are people out there who write software, who design the operating systems that run our phones, computers and cars. These are the people who create and tweak the algorithms that regulate our digital lives and, if Elon Musk has his way, will program the chips he would like to one day insert into our brains. In the process, these diligent geniuses collectively push forward the frontiers of technology, earning billions of dollars and propelling their national economies to great heights.
In a fair world, Pakistan would top the list of such countries because we have already mastered the art of updating human software by using only the lowest tech available, with no need for countless supporting industries. The method is simple: people are arrested and released only to be rearrested until they crack and if they’re unavailable, then family members are picked up and held until the target of the software update duly goes on record, announcing that they have ended their affiliation with the practically blacklisted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its chairman, Imran Khan.
The speed, scale and severity of the dismantling, or reverse engineering if you prefer, has indeed been stunning. It’s also possible, of course, that those who have broken away from the party so quickly and completely, were never made of material that lasts; many of these people, we recall, were the shrillest voices in PTI when it came to heaping calumny on opponents, real or imagined, to curry favour with Khan. What role these people had in formulating Khan’s disastrous political strategies – like resigning from the national assembly or dissolving the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies – remains unclear. We do know that Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Pervaiz Elahi, to name just two, had advised against such moves but were ignored. The fact that these two are, thus far, still standing with Khan shows that much-maligned ‘career politicians’ often get a bad rap and that it remains true that the emptiest of vessels make the most noise as if to compensate for their lack of substance with loudness.
Certainly some ‘electables’ will be swayed but as far as PTI supporters go, the only person they will vote for is Khan himself, or anyone he chooses to bless with a ticket.
Zarrar Khuhro
In another modern edition of a classic technique, attempts are being made to carve a ‘forward bloc’ out of the PTI, led by none other than former stalwart Murad Raas, who also served as Punjab education minister under another former stalwart Usman Buzdar. Raas, after tearfully departing the PTI, seems to have mastered his emotions and is setting up a party named PTI-democrats, and those who are old enough to remember will recall the creation of the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians – Patriot group, which was named with as much imagination as our master planners are capable of mustering. Along with the Jahangir Tareen Group, it is hoped that this party will attract some votes away from the PTI, but honestly speaking that doesn’t seem to be a likely outcome; certainly some ‘electables’ will be swayed but as far as PTI supporters go, the only person they will vote for is Khan himself, or anyone he chooses to bless with a ticket.
In the meantime, Khan is being ‘unpersoned’ in true Orwellian fashion, with no mention of him by name on electronic media. Taken in isolation it’s a losing tactic, but it's now clear that the mission to cut him down to size is only just truly getting underway, spurred on by the events of May 9, and will likely culminate in the banning of the PTI, or else the arrest and/or disqualification of Khan himself. Once that’s done, we can move towards elections – or whatever semblance of an election we get – and one more chapter of Pakistan’s sordid power politics will come to a close.
But these are tactics, and while they may be successful in the short term, the success of the underlying strategy – the political elimination of Imran Khan - is far from guaranteed. Nor does there seem to have been an attempt to factor in the extreme resentment the crackdown is generating for an entire generation. It’s a late and partial realization, of course. Late, because a quick reading of history would have led anyone to this conclusion, and partial because it absolves PTI and its supporters of having been part of the same engineering that is being used against them now.
Had the last few years been spent not in the witch-hunts of opponents but in building bridges, perhaps the massive rollback of rights and progress we are seeing these days could have been mitigated, if not completely avoided. But I suppose that realization will need far more than a software upgrade; for that, we’ll need to change our hardware.
- Zarrar Khuhro is a Pakistani journalist who has worked extensively in both the print and electronic media industry. He is currently hosting a talk show on Dawn News. Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
