By Syed Haider Raza Mehdi
I’ve seen some of the craziest written and verbal gymnasts and contortionists in action today.
Ive seen arguments ranging from people who just can’t accept that we’ve done something unthinkable in Pakistan. Something that seemed like this beautiful dream to this lottery that we finally won!
We’ve finally caught one of the two biggest rats, crooks, thieves and criminals in our history.
Hopefully and Insha Allah, the come uppance and judgement of the other Rat is not far off.
“But what about the accountability of “Generals and Judges and Sain Khan and the milk man and my neighbours dog?” say these people. And what about Imran and General Musharraf and Jehangir Tareen?”
“What about them?”
They will and should be punished, when and if found guilty by the courts. But not kangaroo courts but by courts with Spines like this “Famous Five” or the “Super Six”.
And only if you let this continue will the law catch up with everyone!
You can’t stop the car at Jhelum and complain that you can’t get to Lahore!!!
The PMLN press conference was a disgrace to that Party and to those sorry figures who addressed it.
The lawyer who recited poetry and babbled incoherently.
The LNG king Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, a disgrace to Lawrence College and his Thund Abbasi clan of Murree.
The “lohay kay Chunnay”, Saad Rafique. More a Khawaja Sara then a Khawaja Saad!
The Law Minister who drafted Gen. Musharraf’s emergency declaration in November 2007. And not a flicker of shame in his eyes.
I actually couldn’t watch further. Felt physically sick.
What a disgrace these people are for themselves, for their families, the names they carry, the institutions who educated them, the parents who brought them up, the children they parent, their extended family and friends and associates!
What a bloody disgrace!
How shamelessly they defend the loot and plunder.
How shamelessly they seek rationale in the corruption of others to defend the indefensible!
How they try and create victim hood by alleging dark conspiracies but unable to see the daylight robbery of this fat man and his fat family, fattened on the sweat blood and toil of the poor and the wretched of Pakistan!
Fie on you, you people without an iota of remorse or self respect!
Fie on you for your brazen and unholy defence of a crook, under the garb of “destruction of a democratic process”!
Shame on you for questioning a Supreme Court which went out of its way to offer every opportunity to this criminal, Nawaz and his terrible family to prove their innocence!
Shame on you for alleging the bias on the JIT, which for once in this blighted land, we found 6 good, fit and proper men.
Shame on you for the values you uphold and the behaviour you offer!
Shame on us that we allow the likes of you to get into positions of power and authority!
And shame as well on these so called “left wing cold war warriors”, as I call them, who can’t see the world beyond a stupid binary of “us” and “them”.
To these blind people, lead by the likes of that shrieking woman Asma Jilani and her cohort of supporters, the “democratic order” being “us” and the “Establishment ” (read Army) being “them”
Times have changed but these ignorant folks haven’t grown up and still live in the Zia Martial Law era. A dark period indeed. Or equate Musharraf’s time as that of darkness. While I despise military rule. Gen. Musharraf’s period was Heaven compared to this Hell.
But in fairness, as today one can be magnanimous, maybe they mean well when they also question why so and so wasn’t taken to task.
Or they try and bore holes in the Supreme Court Judgement.
Or question the JIT or talk about the “big bad establishment wolf”. Maybe some of them genuinely mean well.
To them I say. We must allow this process to continue. Please don’t nickel and dime it as you so called “brilliant intellectuals” are doing.
That day which you ask for, as does every body and immortalized by Faiz Ahmed Faiz in his “Woh Din Jiss ka Wahda thaa” will eventually come. When all will be questioned and punished.
“The Day” in that epic poem, which my dear late friend and mentor, Omar Asghar Khan recited so often in his speeches and hauntingly sung by the nightingale Tina Sani. Insha Allah that day, “Woh din” will also come.
And when it does, everybody will be hauled. Be they Military or Civil. Judges or politicians. Business people or professionals. Everybody.
That time has to come. And it will come. But only if we start this journey somewhere.
But if we keep saying: *”Laykin uss ko… aur iss ko…aur maazee may … tho..uggar..muggar…..shuggar”* then we’re screwed good and proper.
Because you are then guilty in stifling this process from the outset.
You’re guilty of muddying the waters with these insane arguments.
And you’re as guilty as the PMLN leaders in casting doubts on these noble people of character and courage who did something no one has done before.
Let this process continue, for God’s Sake. It will eventually get everyone. And it should. Insha Allah.
And that will only happen as we continue on this journey and institutionalize the processes of accountability with transparency and authenticity.
It will only happen if we laud and honour people with as solid a spine as our brave 5 Supreme Court Justices and our 6 brave men of the JIT.
Because then we will always have an Imran Khan type breathing down the neck of all those who misuse their public office for personal gain.
It is then that we will triumph and become a Pakistan to be proud off!
We’ve started at the top, and let the games begin in earnest! Insha Allah.
-Haider Mehdi.