The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
Stop the spiral of silence; allow informed opinion. End people’s isolation and fear of free speech. The exigencies of events dictate that we take the nation’s pulse. No longer can our rulers shut out public opinion. Listen to the people, please. But who will hold these opinion polls? Can the civil society/intelligentsia/state agents/ business and industry, and the initiated like you and me step up to the challenge? The corporate media can launch the opinion poll campaign and become the flagship named 'Enterprise Pakistan’.
What do Pakistanis want their president and the prime minister to do with the Sharifs? Do they want the November 2 judiciary? Do they want the repeal of the 17th Amendment? Do they or don’t they want the NRO? Do they want the present government to complete its term? Do they want transparency and accountability of their politicians, judges, businessmen, feudals, faujis, and bureaucrats? How do they propose we get out of the economic hole? Who can end the energy crisis? What to tell the US? Where are the millions loaned by the IMF? We need an account and let us be the auditors of the government spending. Should Salmaan Taseer and the cricket chief Ijaz Butt get fired after the Sri Lankan fiasco? Should Rahman Malik be removed as the security head?
Instead of swimming in the choppy waters of a long march, better it would be for the masses fighting for an independent judiciary to press for opinion polls countrywide. Re-engage people with politics. Mian brothers, Imran Khan, Qazi Sahib and Aitzaz Ahsan – do give it a thought. Expend your resources and energies on this intellectual endeavour. Spread your surveyors in the four corners of the country. Collect millions of responses and signatures and then knock at the president’s door. Zardari will have to open up and let you and your glut of mass referendum in.
Remember the housewife Cory Aquino drove dictator Marcos out of the Philippines when millions signed a petition for her to lead the country. Unless every Pakistani is invited to play his or her part, the political circus will continue.
When N-League louts put fire to the necklace of PPP posters lovingly strung up by Governor Salmaan Taseer, he gets a new alter ego hoisted on his Governor House gates. It’s done on a war footing. When N-League louts put fire to the posters where Benazir Bhutto was martyred, a sea of MQM mourners sits motionless in sullen silence listening to Altaf Hussain’s telephonic dirge. President Zardari and his predecessor Musharraf dial London to congratulate Hussain on the "success" of the show. Additionally the airwaves get taken over by grief-stricken jiyalas elegizing the 'heinous’ act.
'Breaking news’ has made this nation into one big couch potato.
Salman Taseer’s pettifoggery with the Sharifs has cost us dearly. We’ve lost cricket. This, because he wanted to present Punjab on a platter to his boss Zardari. He deranged the police network disorienting the top hierarchy. He made the change at a time when Sri Lankan cricketers were guaranteed safety. Will anyone trust the governor again? Mustafa Khar, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s famous Punjab governor, has asked that Taseer resign. The evening before the terror attack, Taseer had gathered the hacks to show them scraps of Shahbaz Sharif’s 'extravagances’ saying he’d furnish the proof later. The Guv, instead of going in a huddle with his new admin team (who were still unpacking) to ensure Lahore’s security, was busy poking into the sacked chief minister’s drawers searching for a smoking gun.
How long will Shahbaz sing Habib Jalib’s verses mein nahin manta? How long will Taseer rule in Lahore-turned-lalaland? How long will the PPP and N-League horse trade for PML-Q votes? How long will Zardari’s 'B’ team, the MQM lend him its ethnic card?
Shut up and let the people speak through opinion polls.
Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu
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